


Uranium Fever

by Cinnamongirl



Series: Uranium Fever [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, Binge Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Past Domestic Violence, Slow Burn, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:44:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8938414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamongirl/pseuds/Cinnamongirl
Summary: One of my Sole Survivors was a Railroad loyalist who seduced Paladin Danse by modding a lot of weapons. Sometimes I think about what that was like from Danse's perspective.





	1. Chapter 1

Danse’s first thought was that the civilians who wandered into the police station courtyard were raiders. 

His squad—what was left of it—had been fighting off the ghouls as best as they could but it was looking more and more hopeless. They could probably manage to fight them off today without any further casualties and there was a good chance that they’d survive tomorrow, but what about the next day or the one after that? This is what was on his mind when the ghoul that had been attacking him suddenly crumpled to the ground. He glanced around and saw several other dead ghouls, but no indication of what had killed them. The mysterious assistance shifted the odds in their favor and they defeated the rest of the ghouls easily. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, two people walked into the compound. They certainly _looked_ like raiders. There was a man with dark hair and dark sunglasses, even though it was nighttime. He was wearing a leather jacket and pants and lighting a cigarette as he walked. He was accompanied by a woman who was carrying a sniper rifle. She had pale skin that was dusted with freckles and brown hair pulled back into a tight bun, and she had the same dirty leathers that the majority of raiders seemed to prefer, underneath pieces of mismatched armor. Danse raised his rifle in their direction. The only thing that stopped him from shooting them immediately was the fact that they didn’t seem interested in attacking him.

“You know,” the woman said, “we just saved your shiny metal ass so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t repay the favor by killing us. If you’d be so kind.” The man next to her puffed on his cigarette, looking bored. Danse almost didn’t notice that his other hand was at his own weapon.

Danse lowered his rifle but he kept the safety off. “Who are you?”

“I’m Stephanie, and this is Deacon.” She gestured to Deacon, who raised his cigarette in Danse’s general direction in a lazy salute. 

Danse introduced himself along with Haylen and Rhys, realizing that it was only polite. Stephanie and Deacon didn’t seem to react one way or the other. They refused to tell him where they were from or what, exactly, their business was at the police station but Stephanie expressed interest in assisting them further and they weren’t in a position to turn down help. Deacon left with a “See you around, boss,” and Danse escorted Stephanie inside.

Once they were inside the well-lit front lobby, he realized that her armor was actually in surprisingly good condition. Her rifle looked like it had been cobbled together from several different pieces, but it was a higher-quality weapon than he’d expected anyone in the Commonwealth to have. He wondered about the person who she’d undoubtedly stolen it from.

To her credit, Stephanie was completely unfazed by Rhys’ attitude and seemed to connect with Haylen almost immediately, getting into an animated conversation about Haylen’s work. After a chance to restock supplies and a brief rest, she and Danse were ready to head out early the next morning.

The trip to ArcJet was mostly uneventful. Stephanie didn’t have trouble keeping up with Danse and she provided cover fire for him when they were attacked. By the time they reached their destination, they’d fallen into a rhythm together that was so natural that he almost forgot that they hadn’t fought together, or even met, before last night.

Danse’s blood ran cold when he realized that Institute synths had been in the building and were likely still there, but Stephanie didn’t even flinch. “How can you be so nonchalant?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’m not afraid of synths. A round in the head kills them just like everybody else.” 

Her bravado was evidently not unfounded. Now that he had more of an opportunity to watch her fight, Danse realized that Stephanie was an excellent shot. She was sharp and efficient, dispatching the synths cleanly without wasting ammunition. Almost before he knew it, the building was secured and the Deep Range Transmitter had been obtained and Danse couldn’t believe how well the mission had gone. When he’d hired an unknown civilian who was probably a raider, he’d assumed that the best possible outcome would be that his companion would provide minimal support while he did almost all of the work. Instead, she’d impressed him with not only her marksmanship but her demeanor in battle and ability to follow orders without question. He told her as much and was surprised again when her face lit up.

“Do you really mean that, Paladin?” she asked.

“Of course I do.” He went on to offer her one of his own rifles—he was curious to see what she could do with an energy weapon after observing her mastery of a more traditional ballistic sniper rifle—and sponsorship into the Brotherhood, should she be interested.

She was, it turned out, and she was very grateful for the opportunity. “Thank you so much!” she beamed, “this is such an honor!”

The walk back to the police station was significantly more optimistic. They finally had the means to contact the Prydwen, not to mention a very promising new recruit. 

“Have you had any formal training?” Danse asked her. “I’ve never seen a raider with so much skill or discipline.” 

“So, yeah, about that,” she said, not looking at him. “There’s something you should probably know. I tried to avoid telling people at first, but it turns out that if you just show up in the Commonwealth without a good explanation for where you came from or why you don’t know things that are obvious to everyone else, people assume that you’re a synth and start harassing you.”

Danse tensed at the implication. “What are you saying-“

“Jesus, I’m not a synth, okay? …At least I don’t think I am? Pretty sure.”

“Then what ARE you saying.” It was more of an accusation than a question. _Damn it._ He should have know that she was too good to be real.

“I’m from the past, actually, before the Great War. I was in a cryostasis pod in a Vault for over 200 years and I was just thawed out back in October.”

“You’re pre-war?” he asked her, incredulous. It was so different from anything he’d expected her to say that he had no idea how to process it.

She winced. “Yeah. It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Anyway, to answer your question, my family was really into hunting so I kind of grew up around guns. I got started with competitive shooting when I was a kid and I stuck with it for most of my life until my job got too busy to do anything else. I actually went to college on a riflery scholarship.”

“I understood the world riflery in that last sentence,” Danse replied.

She laughed. “I never actually shot at anything that was trying to attack me until after I was unfrozen, so that’s definitely been interesting to get used to but I think I’ve been doing okay so far. I haven’t died yet, anyway.”

Danse thanked her for telling him and they resumed walking, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. He couldn’t believe that he was in the presence of someone who had actually been alive before the bombs destroyed everything. After a minute or two of silence, he spoke up. “When I was complaining about the pre-war corporations back in ArcJet, I didn’t mean that as a criticism of you. I hope you did not take it that way.”

Stephanie laughed again. “You know, I almost want to tell you that I was a nuclear scientist or something, just to see how you’d react. Maybe I was even on the team responsible for developing the bombs.”

“Were you?” He assumed that this was an attempt at a joke.

“Fuck no, I was just a lawyer. No offense taken. I appreciate the thought, though.”

Almost immediately after arriving back at the police station, Stephanie was ready to go back out to complete another assignment. Danse couldn’t believe that his new recruit was adapting to the Brotherhood so quickly.

Afterward, everyone sat down to eat something resembling an actual meal, instead of just ration bars. After all the time spent watching their numbers decrease it was encouraging to see a new person there. 

“So you’re from a Vault?” Haylen asked.

“Yes,” Stephanie said without making eye contact.

“Did you ever have one of those blue Vault suits?”

“Yes,” she said again. She seemed very interested in her food.

“Oh, do you still have it? I’ve always wanted to see one of those up close.”

“No.”

“What happened to it?”

“It disintegrated.” Stephanie finally looked up. “All of the Vaults had the same suits but mine was the only cryo vault, so they never tested the material at very low temperatures. The rapid freezing and thawing made the synthetic fibers break down and it just fell apart. I was actually wandering around the Commonwealth naked for a while before I found a dead raider who was the same size as me.” She calmly went back to eating as Haylen just stared at her and blinked a few times.

* * *

Danse was almost jealous of Stephanie for getting to experience the Prydwen for the first time. He wondered what she must think of it. She didn’t express any emotion that he could see. Was she intimidated or excited, or maybe both? Had there been anything like it before the war? Stephanie seemed reluctant to talk about the past, but she must realize that any insights she could provide about pre-war technology would be of immense value. 

Stephanie stood at attention and listened intently to Elder Maxson’s speech. Afterward, she spoke to him with exactly the right blend of confidence and respect and saluted him sharply as if she’d been doing it for years. Danse was practically beaming with pride. 

Her medical examination went less well. The physical exam was fine, at least as far as Danse could tell from the time when he was actually allowed inside the room with her. She was almost impossibly healthy. He’d believed her when she said that she lived before the war, but it was still surprising to see evidence that this was actually true. The verbal questionnaire was… difficult. Stephanie responded to most of Cade's questions with evasive and often bizarre answers in a serious, nearly-emotionless tone of voice. She was rude and borderline insubordinate and Danse could tell that Cade was trying to get the exam over with as quickly as possible. 

He was starting to doubt that her name was even Stephanie Watson but it fit on a holotag easily enough so he kept his suspicions to himself.

Fortunately, the rest of Stephanie’s introduction to the Prydwen went off without a hitch. She spoke enthusiastically and intelligently with Quinlan, expressing genuine interest in his research, and she asked Teagan a lot of questions about his weapon mods. She apologized to Ingram for knowing very little about Power Armor and asked if there were any materials that she could study in order to learn more.

“Honestly, you just pop a fusion core in and climb inside, and the display will tell you everything you need to know. It takes a bit to get the hang of walking around but you’ll get it soon enough.”

“No, I meant so that I could learn how to do field repairs and modify it. If I’m going to be using something, I want to understand how it works.”

“I should have documents like that, if you’re interested in borrowing them,” Danse said.

“Really?” Her face lit up. “Thank you!” 

He lent her all of the documentation he could find about Power Armor, in addition to several weapon manuals. Stephanie looked excited. “I can’t wait to read through all of this,” she said. “Energy weapons are unfortunately a pretty major gap in my knowledge base.”

“It’s admirable that you want to learn as much as you can. Too many soldiers think that they don’t need to understand how their equipment works as long as they know how to use it, but they couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Right? That’s what I’ve always said but people usually just tell me that I’m boring or I’ve got a stick up my ass.”

Danse smiled conspiratorially. “To be honest, I have often been told both of those things about myself.”

“Well, we can be anal penetration buddies together, then!” There was an awkward pause. “…That was phrased badly. I promise that I’m not trying to solicit you for anal sex. Or any other type of sex.”

Danse frowned. “That would be highly inappropriate.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “It really would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I completely forgot about the Institute scientist Evan Watson when I wrote this, but Stephanie and Shaun aren't related to him.


	2. Chapter 2

While they were traveling in the Commonwealth, Stephanie’s Pip-Boy picked up a distress signal. They followed it until they found a satellite array in a valley that had been overrun by Super Mutants. 

“I’d advise caution, soldier,” he said. “These things are dangerous.”

“Acknowledged,” she replied without turning to look at him. She pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the valley. He remembered how well she’d handled the mission that Maxson had sent them on to recover the armory that had been overrun by Super Mutants, but they didn’t have the benefit of a vertibird-mounted minigun in this situation. 

“Can you cover me long enough for me to get up if their dogs find us?” she asked.

“Affirmative.”

She dropped down into a prone position, with her legs spread apart. She set her backpack down in front of her and rested her rifle on top of it. He watched her make some adjustments before she held her body very still and peered through the scope. She inhaled, exhaled, and then squeezed the trigger. Danse could faintly see one of the Super Mutants collapsing in the distance. It wasn’t the first time that he’d seen someone bring down a Super Mutant with one hit, but it was impressive nonetheless. Stephanie managed to take out several more of the abominations before the hounds started running toward them. True to his word, Danse held them off until she’d had time to stand up and switch to a using a shotgun.

“You handle pressure very well,” he said once they’d finally cleared the area.

Stephanie shrugged. “Honestly, this is nothing compared to working in biglaw.”

They found out that the distress signal was coming from a Brotherhood scribe who had been killed after becoming separated from his squad. In Danse’s experience, Stephanie was never squeamish about handling corpses. She didn’t hesitate to pick through the bodies of raiders or Gunners that she’d killed in order to find anything of value. The scribe, however, she handled respectfully, carefully removing his holotags and marking the location on her map so that a vertibird could be sent to retrieve his body. 

Stephanie and Danse made their way around the area and slowly located the rest of the recon team. The experience was sobering, to say the least. Danse couldn’t stop thinking about how this had very nearly happened to his own squad. He’d thought that their luck couldn’t have been any worse, but at least there were survivors. They might have all died alone and in pain and it would have been his fault.

When they found the location of Paladin Brandis, Danse was expecting yet another casualty but somehow, miraculously, Brandis was still alive. Danse could recognize the familiar fear and resignation in his eyes- the conviction that he’d failed so horribly that the Brotherhood would never want to have anything to do with him. He watched in awe as Stephanie gave Brandis the holotags that she’d collected and convinced him to report back to the Prydwen. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the Brotherhood,” she said. “We need you. Your skills and experience are going to waste out here and that’s not helping anybody.” He didn’t know how she’d managed to find exactly the right words to say but he couldn’t imagine being more proud of her.

* * *

They spent New Year’s Eve huddled together in an abandoned shack. They could have signaled for a vertibird to take them back to the Prydwen, but Stephanie agreed that it didn’t make sense to go and then come all the way back tomorrow when they were so close to their destination. Danse stepped out of his Power Armor and started to set everything up for the night. He’d managed to get a fire going when he noticed that she was staring at him.

“Is something the matter?” he asked.

She looked up at his face. “You’re tall.” 

“Yes. Is there a problem or are you merely making observations?” Danse was accustomed to standing over most people, in or out of his armor. Now that he thought about it, Stephanie seemed to be taller than average but she was still shorter than him. He wasn’t sure why she’d decided to call attention to it.

She shook her head, laughing at herself. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It always surprises me to see you out of your Power Armor because I assumed for so long that you were a scrawny little guy and you were just overcompensating. Forget I said anything.”

Danse wasn’t sure how to respond so he went back to the fire and tried to put it out of his mind.

They watched the time pass on Stephanie’s Pip-Boy over a dinner of grilled mirelurk and carrots and a few bottles of beer that they’d found in an ancient cooler. The shack kept out most of the wind but they still had to wear heavy coats and gloves. He’d already witnessed other people’s futile attempts to get straight answers out of her about her own past, so he decided to talk about Rivet City and enlisting in the Brotherhood and before he knew it he was telling her about Cutler.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Thank you.” It still wasn’t any less painful to think about. He sat there, next to her but not looking at her, trying to figure out what he should do or say next.

“So,” she eventually said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “How does a scavver end up talking like he ate a dictionary? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve met very intelligent people from all walks of life but you have to admit that you have an… _idiosyncratic_ vocabulary.”

“I read a lot,” he said awkwardly. “Or I used to, back when I had more free time.” He remembered liking histories the best, as well as anything scientific, but he used to read everything he could get his hands on.

“Huh, I can see that. No offense, but it’s very easy to believe that you spent more time around books than people when you were growing up.” Most of Danse’s early memories were of desperate loneliness and the constant need to know more and be _better_ , to prove that he could rise from nothing.

When it was almost midnight, they sat next to each other and she leaned against him so that they could both read the time on her Pip-Boy. They watch the seconds tick down until the display read January 1, 2288, 12:00am. “Happy New Year,” Stephanie whispered, her face inches away from his.

“Happy New Year,” he replied.

Since there was no longer a reason to sit so close to her, Danse moved a more comfortable distance away and went to finish his drink so that they could turn in for the night. Stephanie leaned forward into his space and clinked her beer bottle against his. He looked up to see her smiling. “Cheers,” he said before finishing the rest of the bottle.

“Ad victoriam.” She grinned at him and downed the rest of her own beer. 

 

They made a token attempt to sleep separately, but it quickly became apparent that it was too cold, even with the fire still burning. “I’m sorry,” Stephanie said, visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t want to impose, but I’ve spent way too much time frozen already and-“

“It’s fine. You’re not imposing at all.” They lay down next to each other and wrapped themselves in all of the coats and blankets and sleeping bags that they had between them. Stephanie muttered something under her breath about how Danse was apparently too large and hairy to get cold. He felt her shiver against his body and he could tell that she was clenching her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering. “It’s all right,” he said again. He felt useless. Eventually, her body warmed up enough to relax and they both fell asleep.

When Danse woke up, he had an odd, half-conscious realization that there was an attractive person in his bed (or sleeping bag, rather) and that his dick was hard against her thigh. He tried to shift his body away without disturbing her but she woke up anyway. Fortunately, she was either too sleepy to notice or too polite to say anything. By the time they were packing up to continue their assignment, he’d completely forgotten about any lingering awkwardness.

* * *

Not too long after that, Stephanie asked Danse to accompany her on a mission that Rhys had assigned. They were to clear out the feral ghouls that had invaded the Hubris Comics building. It was tedious, stressful work. Danse was protected fairly well by his Power Armor but the ghouls had a tendency to swarm him and pin him in a corner so that he couldn’t move or fight back effectively. Stephanie tried to stay at range and pick them off from across the room, but she had a lot more difficulty when the ghouls forced her to engage in close combat. 

As they slowly made their way through the building, Stephanie expressed interest in the few comic books that were still intact. Her face lit up when the reached the top floor. “Oh, this was where they recorded the old Silver Shroud episodes! I never got into the radio show or the TV show but I used to read the comics sometimes.” She glanced around the room. “Shit, is that the actual costume? I have a friend who would love that.” 

Neither of them noticed the Glowing One until it emerged from behind the stage and lunged at Stephanie. “Look out!” Danse shouted, firing as quickly as possible.

Stephanie dashed across the room and managed to light a molotov cocktail with impressive speed. She threw it at the Glowing One and was able to slow it down enough to allow both her and Danse to fire several rounds in its head, but it wasn’t enough. Danse watched in horror as the Glowing One caught up with her and pinned her against the wall. He rushed forward, trying to do as much damage as possible and somehow convince it to target him instead. By the time he’d managed to finally kill it, Stephanie had collapsed on the ground. 

“Knight!” he called out. He realized that his voice sounded panicked. He looked through her pack, which was fortunately kept very well organized, and found some Rad-Away and other medical supplies. He removed the glove from Stephanie’s right hand and pulled her sleeve back far enough to expose her wrist so that he could clean the area with antiseptic and insert the IV needle. Once it was in place, he taped the needle down. 

Stephanie started to regain consciousness when the Rad-Away hit her bloodstream. “Paladin?” she asked.

“I’m here. You were attacked by a Glowing One and you took a lot of radiation.” She appeared to have sustained other injuries as well, but there was nothing that needed urgent attention.

“Damn it. I’m so sorry.” She tried to sit up but he gently held her down.

“You need to recline right now. You’re in danger of passing out again.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“You don’t need to apologize. These abominations are particularly challenging opponents.”

“No,” she said, frowning. “I should have paid attention and been more careful. I was stupid and I let you down. I promise that it won’t happen again.”

Danse tried to look as stern as he could. “We can debrief later if you want to review the mission, but you need to rest and heal. This could have happened to anyone. That’s why we don’t work alone unless it’s absolutely necessary.” She still looked so ashamed of herself that it tugged at him somewhere in his heart. “I’ve been especially hard on you and you’ve risen to every challenge. Even taking this incident into account, your performance has far exceeded the standards for a new recruit. I absolutely expect you to learn from this and do what you can to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, but it’s not a sign of failure.”

Stephanie managed to sit up once the IV bag had been mostly drained. She opened her mouth as if to speak and then shook her head and closed it. She had trouble meeting Danse’s eyes. When the bag was empty, she pulled the needle out and pressed some cotton against the spot of blood on her skin until it stopped bleeding. “Thank you for saving my life,” she said quietly. After a moment, “Is it all right if I still take the costume?”

“If you can find some use for it, I don’t see why not.” It’s not like the ghouls had been doing anything important with it.

Stephanie finally met his eyes and smiled at him gratefully. She carefully folded the Silver Shroud costume and put it in her backpack, along with a Grognak costume that she found in a locker on the other side of the room. He watched as she scanned through the lockers for anything else of value. “Ooh, Day Tripper! I haven’t seen this in a while.”

Danse scowled. “You don’t honestly use that crap, do you?” He’d never seen her use chems, or even smoke cigarettes, but he’d known drug addicts who could be very subtle when they had to be.

“What? No, I don’t do that shit. I was just excited because I can get a lot of caps for this. See, I don’t use chems, I just loot them from the people I kill and then convince the dealers in Goodneighbor to pay me too much for them because I’m _all_ about making healthy decisions.”

“…I see.”

 

She asked if they could stop by Diamond City instead of heading directly to the police station. They weren’t in any particular hurry and it would be beneficial to stock up on supplies, so Danse agreed.

“So, I should probably warn you,” Stephanie said when they were outside the gates of the city. “Most of Diamond City thinks that I lived in a Vault full of guinea pigs and there’s a merchant who won’t sell to me because she thinks I’m a synth. But anyway, Arturo’s a friend and his ammo prices are reasonable.”

“Excuse me?”

“What, the guinea pig thing? It’s a long story, don’t worry about it.”

“That’s not what I- never mind.” Danse shook his head. If she wanted him to know, he’d probably find out soon enough.

Diamond City seemed safe enough, at least, even though it was disheartening to see so many people living in fear of the dangers beyond the wall. Stephanie bought Danse a fusion core with the money from the chems they’d found, and they were in the process of browsing the market for more supplies when he heard a woman yell “No synths allowed!” He looked up and saw that the woman was glaring at them.

“Yeah, that’s the person I was telling you about.” Stephanie ushered him in another direction but he could still hear the woman yelling about synths and threatening to report them to the city guards.

“What happened?” 

“Let’s just go inside. Trust me, she’ll just get more worked up if we stick around to argue with her.” She produced a key from one of her pockets and opened a door. He’d seen her pick locks before, but she never just broke into lawfully-occupied buildings. Danse glanced around at the guards but they didn’t seem concerned.

“Who owns this?”

“I do.” She stepped inside and gestured for him to follow. He realized that they were inside an apartment. 

“You live in Diamond City?”

“Sometimes.” She waved a hand in the direction of a couch. “Feel free to make yourself comfortable. Or, stay in your Power Armor if that makes you more comfortable. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Why does that merchant think you’re a synth?”

“She asked me ‘Are you a synth?’ the first time I came to Diamond City and I may have told her yes. In my defense, I said it in a very obviously sarcastic voice and I have no idea why she believed me-“

“You said _what_?! You could have gotten yourself killed! How can you just joke about something like that?”

“Yeah, I know. Like I said, I hadn’t been out of the Vault for very long at that point and I wasn’t really aware of how scared people are about the Institute.”

Danse decided to exit his Power Armor and sit down on her couch instead of trying to think of a response to that. It was strange, he thought, how one of the most serious people he’d ever met could sometimes refuse to take anything seriously. He looked around the apartment. It was fairly large and well-lit, with industrial lighting evenly spaced around the walls. There was a kitchen area not far from where he was sitting and he could see a bed and a desk at the end of the hallway. Stephanie had set up weapon and armor workbenches in the middle of the apartment and they were surrounded by rows of neatly stacked boxes that had been meticulously labeled with cramped handwriting. It was clean and organized, he noticed with some satisfaction, and very plain, without any decorative items or personal effects. He wondered how much time she actually spent here.

He watched as Stephanie unloaded various items from her pack. She transferred some things to the boxes and pulled seemingly random bits of scrap out of other boxes. She seemed to know where everything was without having to look at the labels. Stephanie started working on something at the weapon bench and Danse realized that he was sitting at the edge of the couch, trying to watch as closely as possible without interrupting her. It was fascinating to watch her strip seemingly useless junk for parts and piece them together into something new. He couldn’t stop staring at her always-steady hands, or the silhouette of her body as she bent over the bench.

“So, Maxson’s an interesting guy,” she said, forcing Danse to snap out of wherever his mind had wandered and focus on what she was saying. “Damn good at giving speeches.”

“Elder Maxson is an inspiring leader. What do you think of him so far?”

“He’s young.”

“His record is even more impressive, considering his age.”

She ducked her head in acknowledgment. “What’s his issue with ghouls? Not the feral ones, obviously, but he seems to have a problem with the non-feral ones.”

“Does the distinction really matter? All ghouls eventually become feral.”

“Has that actually been confirmed, though?” She paused to hammer something that she’d been working on. “I only ever hear third-hand anecdotes of ghouls suddenly going feral and there are lots of pre-war ghouls running around who don’t seem to be anywhere close to it.” Danse heard more hammering from the workbench. He tried to see what she was working on. “I don’t know much about biology, but I thought that their skin was all weird-looking because of the radiation damage, and in the case of ferals the radiation has spread to their brain. There has to be some reason why the brains of non-feral ghouls are still intact.”

“You seem very concerned about proving that ferals and non-ferals are fundamentally different.” This conversation was pointless, as far as Danse was concerned. All ghouls were dangerous and none of them should exist in the first place.

“The difference between people who try to eat me on sight and people who don't want to eat me is of great concern to me, yes. Do you know if the Brotherhood has ever studied any of this?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.” He was curious to see where she was going with this line of thought.

“There has to be some important factor in the radiation they were exposed to, or the environment, or maybe something about their individual physiology, and our scribes are probably the only ones left with the facilities to actually investigate this. I mean, I’m only a knight so I can't propose research topics but it seems like ghouls are a serious enough problem that it would be worth it to learn more about them.”

“That’s an interesting idea.” Danse decided that he would bring it up with the scribes when he had a chance.

 

Before long, Stephanie finished working. She showed him that she’d fabricated a rifle barrel. “This should fit on the laser rifle that you’ve been using and if I haven’t completely screwed it up, it’ll significantly increase the range and damage.”

“You made this for me?” Danse certainly enjoyed coming up with modifications for his own weapons but it was incredibly thoughtful of her to just make something from scratch for him.

“You’ve been so patient with me while I’ve been learning everything and you _did_ save my life earlier. It’s the least I could do to show my appreciation. Feel free to sell it if you don’t want it, though. I promise that I won’t be offended.”

He accepted the gift gratefully. Even if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t dream of getting rid of it.

* * *

Knight Watson dutifully wore her Brotherhood uniform whenever she was onboard the Prydwen, but she changed into her own armor once they were out in the field. Danse honestly couldn’t blame her; she was still wearing mismatched pieces that she’d scavenged but with all the work she’d done on her armor, it was significantly better than anything else that was available. It also had the benefit of not standing out in the Commonwealth. Unless one examined her armor closely enough to recognize the superior craftsmanship, she could easily be mistaken for a random raider (as Danse himself had done, he remembered with some embarrassment). 

She would also disappear occasionally in between assignments, with vague explanations about other responsibilities that she had. She was sometimes gone for weeks at a time but she would always come back to accept more missions and complete them before vanishing again. Danse didn’t mind this, either. He had his own duties to attend to and he preferred to be available whenever she needed him. It was his responsibility as his sponsor to oversee her progress, but they also just worked really well together. 

Danse would stand in doorways or stairwells or even between trees, and try to take up as much space as possible and draw fire while Stephanie crouched behind him and methodically picked off their enemies before they could reach him. Afterward, she would search through the bodies for valuable salvage that they could sell. Stephanie liked to collect bits of junk that she could use to improve her weapons and armor. She was talented and, honestly, he loved watching her work. 

They took turns cooking, whether they were at the police station or out in the field. After they ate, Danse would do maintenance on his Power Armor while Stephanie read whatever books and manuals she could get ahold of. She liked to ask him questions: thoughtful, probing questions about the Codex that he tried to answer to the best of his ability and questions about the modern era in general. Neither of them slept very much and they were usually ready to leave out before dawn, but during the times when he couldn’t sleep and she could, he noticed that she had a tendency to talk in her sleep. It was usually only a few words at a time and there was almost never any meaning that he could pick out but he found it endearing. 

Maybe it was just because he’d spent too long with Rhys, but he found that Stephanie had an astonishingly good attitude. She would accept any mission, no matter how difficult or unpleasant or unglamorous, and complete it quickly and effectively without complaint. 

He thought she might be flirting with him. It was difficult to tell for sure; he’d never been good at identifying this kind of behavior and she was generally very subtle about it. She would just make the occasional comment that could potentially be interpreted in a flirtations way and then smile at him as he was left flustered and stammering. 

The most obvious incident occurred after they’d gotten done exterminating a pack of feral ghouls. He was about to comment on the improvement in Stephanie’s close-combat abilities when she asked if he was all right. “They didn’t claw your face too badly, did they? I think it’s the only part of you not heavily armored.”

“My face is fine.”

“That’s a relief. Granted, a few additional scars would probably make you even more handsome.” She grinned at him.

“That’s highly inappropriate.” Danse could feel himself blushing.

“Right. Of course. My apologies.”

“Good.” 

To her credit, the silence that followed wasn’t any more awkward than it normally was and they quickly went back to their usual conversation, any embarrassment forgotten.

 

The first time he saw her undressed was right after they’d been caught in a bad radiation storm. By the time they found shelter, her leathers had been soaked in irradiated water. She quickly stripped down to nothing but her holotags with her back to Danse while he searched their packs for something dry that she could wear. He avoided staring at her body in order to afford her as much dignity as possible, but once he’d noticed that her back and shoulders were covered in freckles like her face was, he couldn’t get the image out of his head.

 

“Your new Knight is acclimating well,” Arthur observed. “I’ve read your reports and she’s consistently performing at a high level. Kells and Quinlan have had similarly positive things to say about her.”

Danse felt his chest swell with pride. “She is learning very quickly. I don’t believe that she had any combat experience up until several months ago, but she’s made a lot of progress in a short period of time.”

“How did you find her?”

“She heard Haylen’s distress signal and followed it. I offered to recruit her once I’d seen her in action.” Everything he’d said was technically true, but it didn’t seem sufficient. At a time when almost all hope was lost, Stephanie had just walked into his life and changed everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Word spread around the Prydwen that Knight Watson had been inside the Institute. Danse wasn’t the last to find out, but neither was he the first, and he was put in the uncomfortable-at-best position of having to explain to Maxson that no, he’d had no idea that his subordinate had been planning to accomplish on her own what the Brotherhood had come to the Commonwealth to do in the first place. Danse couldn’t even imagine what she must have gone through to find the Institute and break in, let alone how she'd managed to get out unscathed. When asked, Stephanie just shrugged and said “I teleported, _obviously_ ,” but it only raised more questions in Danse’s mind. 

Why hadn’t she told him? He thought about all the time they’d spent together over the past few months. He’d been starting to think of her as a friend, or at least someone with whom he had an amiable working relationship. He’d known that she was sometimes evasive or dishonest but he didn’t think that she would withhold something this big or important. She must have realized that Danse would do anything he could to assist her, especially with something as crucial as this mission. Had she done everything on her own, or did she have other allies who had helped her? Danse was unhappy on behalf of Maxson and the Brotherhood in general but it also stung that she evidently hadn’t trusted Danse enough to tell him that she’d decided to undertake a dangerous mission on her own. She could have been killed inside the Institute and he never would have seen her again.

How was she able to leave the Institute safely? They didn’t seem like an organization that was willing to just let people go. Danse remembered Stephanie’s comments about people thinking she was a synth, and he thought of the merchant in Diamond City. It seemed farfetched, but it would make a lot more sense than her story of living before the war. He dismissed this thought quickly. Something would have come up in her medical exam if she wasn’t human. Danse had only barely dismissed thought when he thought of something potentially more disturbing: what if Stephanie was indeed human when she entered the Institute, but the person who had been sent back was a synth replacement of her? She was acting the same as she always had, but didn’t they all do that? 

Stephanie gave the Brotherhood a holotape of data files that she said she’d gotten from the Institute, as a gesture of good faith. She also reported that she’d met Madison Li while she was there and of course she would be happy to go back and convince her to rejoin the Brotherhood. Danse relaxed considerably once he heard that Dr. Li was on her way. The holotape could have been a decoy by the Institute to try to convince the Brotherhood that Stephanie was on their side, but there was no reason why she would convince one of their scientists to leave if she was actually working for the Institute. 

Maxson seemed to bear no more ill will toward Stephanie by the time Dr. Li arrived. The secrecy still felt sharp in Danse’s chest, but he forced himself to ignore it for the sake of their mission. 

Danse and Stephanie had been instructed to make contact at Waypoint Echo before going into the Glowing Sea to retrieve nuclear bombs. She was acting like nothing had changed, and it was easy to forget about what had happened once they fell back into the familiar routine of fighting together. He thought that he had possibly judged her too harshly. Stephanie was intelligent and she’d consistently displayed sound judgment so far; she must have had a good reason for keeping this from him for so long.

Stephanie glanced down at the map on her Pip-Boy. “The waypoint shouldn’t be too far ahead.” 

“Affirmative.”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You seem off today, like there’s something on your mind.”

“I’m all right. We should keep going.” He took off walking and Stephanie followed. It wouldn’t be the right time to have a potentially-uncomfortable conversation with her. 

Once they found Haylen, Danse left on his own to check the perimeter. They weren’t going to discuss anything that he didn’t already know and he needed to clear his head before he and Stephanie were alone together for an extended time.

Danse reminded himself that Maxson had already lectured Stephanie about her responsibility to disclose information that she knew the Brotherhood would be interested in, and she’d more than made up for her mistake by recruiting Dr. Li and providing the data. Any residual resentment that Danse felt was only caused by his perception of their friendship. He’d thought that they were close enough to be honest with each other, to trust each other, and he realized that he was hurt because he thought they were closer than they evidently really were. It was easier, once he’d articulated his feelings. This was an excellent example of why he shouldn’t be friends with his subordinates. Danse resolved to set more appropriate boundaries in the future and walked back toward Waypoint Echo. 

He heard Stephanie and Haylen before he saw them. Stephanie was complaining about having to wear Power Armor for this mission. “You know, the last couple of times I went to the Glowing Sea, I just took a hazmat suit. And a Stealth Boy, for getting past the deathclaws.”

“Deathclaws, plural?” Haylen sounded impressed. “And wait, you’ve been to the Glowing Sea before? What were you even doing there?”

“Going to church. There’s a really nice little chapel a bit south of here.”

“Uh, okay. Sorry I asked.”

Danse smiled and shook his head. He’d started walking toward them when he heard Haylen speak again.

“So, you and Danse?”

He stopped abruptly.

“Danse and I?” As usual, Stephanie’s voice didn’t give away any emotion.

“I can’t figure out if you two are secretly dating or if there’s just a lot of unresolved sexual tension.” He’d never heard Haylen speak like this before. Danse spluttered in indignation as quietly as possible. 

“Isn’t that against regulations?” Stephanie's voice was just as calm as before. She didn’t seem surprised or offended by Haylen’s bluntness. Maybe this wasn’t an unusual conversation for them?

“That’s not an answer.” 

“All right, here’s your answer: nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen. Yeah, okay, I’m interested in him, but it’s not like he’d be willing to break the rules and it would never work out between us anyway.”

“I’d like to think that I understand him pretty well after all we’ve been through together. If he were going to violate regulations for anyone, it would be you.”

“You think so?” Did she sound hopeful? 

“Honestly, he’d do anything for you. Haven’t you noticed how he’s always looking at you and hanging on every word you say?” Haylen’s voice paused here, probably waiting for a response from Stephanie. There was silence, so she continued, “He’s always talking about you and how amazing he thinks you are.” Danse didn’t talk about her THAT much, did he? “He was trying not to show it, but I could tell that he was really upset when you didn’t tell him about going to the Institute.” 

“That’s interesting, thank you.” Stephanie’s voice was back to being calm.

Danse didn’t notice if they said anything else to each other because had to walk around very quietly until his face cooled down. There were several times when he thought he was fine, and then he remembered how her voice sounded when she said _I’m interested him_ and immediately started blushing again. 

Even after Danse finally made his way back and he and Stephanie had set out together into the Glowing Sea, he still couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was interested in him. It was true that she had said things to him that could be interpreted as flirting, but he’d never thought that she meant any of it. Stephanie made a lot of sarcastic comments that she didn’t mean. On the other hand, he’d never heard her flirt with anybody else, ever, even jokingly, and now that he knew she was _interested in him_ -

She did actually seem to know her way around the Glowing Sea. Danse didn’t question it. This actually made things easier, because he was entirely too distracted to lead them anywhere.

He continued to let her take the lead once they found the Sentinel site. Danse knew that he was being more quiet than usual, but Stephanie didn’t comment on it so he tried not to call attention to himself. As they fought their way through feral ghouls, Danse tried to remember when he’d fallen in love with Stephanie and realized that there hadn’t been any dramatic moment of awareness; rather, the feeling had slowly crept up on him until it was blindingly obvious.

Was it even possible to love someone after only a few months?

Any thoughts he’d had about maintaining appropriate boundaries had been completely forgotten. If he tried to pursue a relationship with her, there was a decent chance that she would agree to it. He realized that he wanted this more than anything else. As her superior, he would be the one facing disciplinary action if they were caught, but risks could be managed and she was more than worth it.

While Danse was preoccupied with self-indulgent and unprofessional thoughts, Stephanie somehow convinced the Children of Atom cultist to just give them access to the bombs without a fight. He was aware of what was going on in the present long enough to be impressed with her.

By the time she left him to make sure that the bombs were secure while she returned to the airport, Danse had made up his mind. The next time they were alone together, he was going to tell her how he felt about her and discuss what they wanted to do next. Danse understood that she had concerns that it might not work out, and she might decide that it wasn’t worth the trouble, but he had to at least try.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening for this chapter: [Something In My Heart by Royksopp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_aFSNB8E5Y).

After Haylen contacted him, he ran.

He couldn’t bring himself to think about what he was going to do later in the day, let alone at any point in the future. Nothing outside of the immediate present seemed real. 

Had his perception of time always been impaired?

 

It was easier once he reached the bunker and busied himself with setting up defenses. He was weak and exhausted but he couldn’t bear the idea of stopping to rest. When he had a goal and a clearly-defined path toward the goal, he could avoid the cycle of trying not to feel any emotion because it was too painful and then realizing that it was disturbingly easy for him to avoid feeling emotions.

At one point, he went about two minutes without thinking about it and he almost felt normal until he remembered, and the shame of temporarily forgetting made it feel even worse.

 

He wondered what he’d done to deserve this. He wondered what he’d originally been designed for. It was most likely not setting up turrets in a dirty bunker. At least he would die here, and the Institute would never be able to use him again.

 

When Danse started hearing someone taking out the defenses upstairs, he was afraid at first and then he was relieved. 

He should’ve known that Arthur would send _her_. He wasn’t sure if it was intended as a punishment (for him or for her?) or a test, or maybe a last concession to Danse by letting him see his friend before he died. At least he could count on Stephanie to kill him quickly and cleanly.

He was aware of it when she entered the room but he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. He waited for her to do something or say something.

Finally he glanced up at her. Stephanie looked _annoyed_ , of all things. 

She actually rolled her eyes at him. “You know, you could’ve told me.”

“I might have, if I’d known.”

“…What?”

“Until Quinlan got that list decoded, I thought synths were the enemy. I never expected to hear that I was one of them.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t- shit, you must be- Is it all right if I hug you?”

“What?” Had he heard her correctly? This was not at all how he’d thought this conversation would go.

“I don’t want to touch you if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine-“ He barely had time to respond before she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Danse allowed himself a guilty moment to enjoy the feeling of her body pressed against his. A week ago, he would have been horrified by the idea of a synth touching her.

“You will be okay,” she said. Her breath felt warm against his neck. “I promise that this will get easier.”

He suddenly remembered her words _I’m interested in him._ It felt like something from another life, a fantasy of what he thought he could have had when he thought he was human.

Too soon, she pulled away. “Okay, you probably already know that Maxson sent me to kill you. We have to figure out how to get you out of here without him knowing. Do you have any good ideas?”

What was she saying? “You can’t disobey your orders,” he said sternly.

“What, you don’t honestly think- Of course you do. Godfuckingdamnit.” The annoyed expression was back. “Danse. Nobody is going to kill you.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I promised a long time ago that I wouldn’t hesitate to die for the Brotherhood if that was what was needed of me.” He smiled sadly. “It’s all right.” She shouldn’t betray the Brotherhood for him. She shouldn’t let a synth go free for him. He wasn’t worth that.

“Christ.” She smacked herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand. “Okay. Danse. Listen to me. Even if we accept it as a given that synths are dangerous and need to be destroyed, your record proves that you aren’t dangerous. You’ve devoted your life to the best interests of humanity. Since you’ve come to the Commonwealth, you have been fighting the Institute and you’ve killed a lot of synths. I mean, if the goal is to eradicate synths then you’re actually much more useful alive than dead.”

“That’s... a good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He wasn’t human but he’d spent his life, or what he’d perceived as if life, fighting to uphold the ideals of the Brotherhood. It was true that he shouldn’t exist in the first place but he could make his existence worthwhile as long as he was able to oppose the Institute and everything they stood for. It was a good reason not to die, in any case.

 

The plan came together quickly after that. Danse needed to get out of the Commonwealth as quickly as possible and hope that Stephanie was able to convince Maxson that she’d killed him. He knew that it would still hurt, but he would have time for that later. 

 

Unfortunately, they never got the chance. He should have known that Maxson would be waiting for them. He probably only sent Stephanie in the first place because he guessed that she'd know where to find Danse and not because he actually had faith in his Knight. It turned out that his suspicions were correct, but Danse bristled slightly on her behalf.

Maxson stepped forward toward Danse, and Stephanie very deliberately stepped between them. She faced Maxson and held her rifle ready. She wasn’t threatening him, not yet. Danse couldn’t see Stephanie’s facial expression but Maxson was glaring at her. For a ridiculous moment, Danse realized that his loyalty was torn between the person who wanted to kill him and the person who was ready to kill for him.

Maxson spoke with the same passion that Danse had heard countless times. Danse had never imagined that he would be on the receiving end of his condemnation. He tried to explain what Stephanie had helped him realize but Maxson wouldn’t listen to him anymore. 

Stephanie responded with a more-polished version of the speech that she’d given to Danse inside the bunker, with particular emphasis on the countless Brotherhood soldiers whose lives he’d saved. He could see the moment when Maxson’s resolve crumbled before he finally said that Danse was dead to him, and he would be dead if he ever saw him again.

The first thing Stephanie did after Maxson left was to return Danse’s holotags to him. “You should have these,” she said.

“Thank you.” It felt wrong to wear them but he wasn’t sure what else to do so he slipped them into his pocket. “He would have gone through you to get to me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“After all the times you’ve let me use you as cover, I can stand in front of you for once.” Her face darkened. “Besides, it’s my fault that this happened to you. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to just hand over the Institute data without even trying to decrypt the files and see what was on there.”

“This wasn’t your fault.”

She sighed but she didn’t try to argue with him. 

She looked much happier after Danse told her that he’d decided to stay in the Commonwealth and continue to fight alongside her. After what she’d done for him, it was the least he could do.

“I should probably get back to the Prydwen and check in with Maxson,” she said. “Will you be here when I get back?”

“I’ll be here,” he promised.

 

While she was gone, he managed to find an old suit of X-01 Power Armor and repair it into something usable, and then get a fire pit set up so that he could prepare food. 

She staggered back into the bunker carrying a very large bag. She set it down gently on the floor. Her eyes lit up when she saw him and he thought for a moment that she was going to hug him again.

“Hey, Danse! It’s so good to see you!” She looked concerned. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m all right,” he said, and he mostly was. “What’s in the bag?”

“Maxson gave me your quarters. I tried to grab everything that looked sentimental and/or expensive.”

“Hold on, what happened?”

“There was apparently a vacant position, so Maxson just gave me your rank and quarters because it was the simplest option even though he was obviously really unhappy about the whole thing. It was the most awkward promotion ever.” 

“Congratulations, Paladin,” he said sincerely.

She made a face at him. “Anyway, look through the bag and let me know if I missed anything, would you?”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Just let me know, okay? It’s no trouble.” She stared at him, and he waited for her to speak. “You know, I’d feel a lot better if you went back to the Castle with me. I get that this place is well-defended but we both know that they’ll come back for you. You could die alone out here and I wouldn’t even know.”

“What do you mean by 'the Castle'?”

“Pre-war fort that became the post-war Minutemen headquarters. The Minutemen took it back recently.” Danse had heard rumors that the Minutemen were back but he hadn’t realized that Stephanie was affiliated with them. “It’s closer to the Prydwen than you are here and they’re still repairing the walls, but it has turrets and 24-hour guard rotations, not to mention purified water and a vegetable garden and, like, an assload of mirelurk jerky so it’s not like you’ll go hungry. What do you think?”

“All right.” He had to admit that the idea of not being alone right now sounded comforting. And besides, she’d just saved his life. He couldn’t imagine denying her anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. I feel like every Danse fan who reads fanfic has already read something like 200 nearly-identical versions of Blind Betrayal, but I didn't want to deviate from canon or skip over it so here is version #201. At least I kept this chapter fairly short?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: [Night Terror by Laura Marling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaFfMg9hnd0)

A vertibird flew overhead shortly after they’d left the bunker.

“For the love of-“ Stephanie groaned. “They couldn’t even give us a small head start?” She turned to him. “Do you want to hide from this thing or fight it?”

“They know we’re here; we won’t be able to hide for long.”

“I can hide a lot more easily than you can. I’m leaving this one up to you.” She peered at the sky. “I can’t get a hit on the Lancer from here, but I should be able to take out anybody who-

“MotherFUCKER!” she yelled suddenly as an energy blast glanced off of her chest plate. 

Danse felt his skin go cold. If her armor hadn’t been so heavily modified, the shot very nearly could have killed her. He hoisted his rifle into position, aiming at the vertibird as it started to descend. “If they want to fight, that’s what we’re going to do.”

After that, it was over surprisingly quickly. Danse attacked the vertibird itself while Stephanie fired at the soldiers on the ground, and between the two of them they managed to bring it crashing down. 

Stephanie turned her face away from the cloud of smoke. When it had cleared, she looked over at him. “Are you all right?” More quietly, “Did you know them?”

“I’m fine.” He wouldn’t know for sure if he knew the soldiers or not unless he checked under their helmets. He decided not to look.

 

They continued south. The Prydwen looked large and imposing in the sky ahead of them, but their journey was uneventful until they reached downtown Boston and had to fight Gunners, raiders, Super Mutants, and a very territorial radscorpion in rapid succession. 

Finally, Stephanie indicated that they were almost to their destination. “There are synths who live there and a ghoul who stops by sometimes,” she warned him. “Please don’t be a racist asshat.”

“I’ll be civil if they are.”

Stephanie shrugged. “I’ll take that.”

The Castle turned out to be an old fortress with large holes in its walls. He could see where they’d been partially rebuilt, complete with abandoned scaffolding. There were guard posts and turrets along the top of the wall, as well as more turrets and some traps in front of every entrance. He could see water purifiers installed in the lake.

The courtyard inside the walls had a small garden and what looked like a radio tower. Inside of the building itself, Danse found a bar and a restaurant and a seemingly-random placement of beds anywhere they could fit. “I never got around to setting up individual rooms or anything, or even really a barracks,” Stephanie said apologetically. “You’re welcome to claim a bed, if you want. Do you want your own room? I could get you a room.”

“I’ll manage,” he said. 

“I’ll get a Power Armor stand set up for you. Is there anything in particular that you’d like to do? You can take one of the guard posts but I’m not sure if you want to be in line of sight of the Prydwen. You used to run a store, right? You could do that again if you want. Or you could be in charge of the artillery? Hell, you can pick corn if you’d rather do that. It’s really up to you. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

“I can stand guard,” he said awkwardly. He at least knew that he could handle that.

“Great!” She glanced around at the people inside the courtyard. “Hey, you!” She flagged down a man who Danse assumed was one of the Minutemen. “You’re off the guard rotation for now. I’m assigning you to artillery.”

“Sure thing, General.” 

“General?” Danse asked.

“It’s more of an honorary title. Anyway, I was saying-“

“You’re the General of the Minutemen? The one who’s been responsible for bringing them back?”

“ _Responsible_ implies that I’ve been actually doing a lot more than I really have. I’ve been _involved_ in restoring the Minutemen-“

“This is a major conflict of interest. You should have disclosed this information to Elder Maxson a long time ago.”

“Oooookay, I am entirely too sober for this conversation.” She turned away from him to chase down another one of the Minutemen. Danse overheard her instructing him to have as much concrete as they could find sent to the Castle.

 

She spent the next few weeks overseeing reconstruction of the walls and building laser turrets and missile turrets to supplement the machine-gun turrets that were already in place. Danse was… not well. It didn't help that he was getting even less sleep than usual. It was difficult to concentrate, even on things that were normally easy for him. His perception of time was still skewed; everything from _before_ seemed like a hazy dream that had happened to someone else, and all the time that had passed since then felt like it had gone by in an instant. He couldn’t even begin to try to think about the future.

He wondered if he was malfunctioning.

Stephanie was the only constant in his life, the only thing that made sense when he couldn’t even trust himself. She was happy to let him watch her tinkering at her weapon bench when his mind was too cloudy to focus on anything else. They spent a lot of nights together while almost everyone else was asleep, sitting in the courtyard and looking at the stars while Danse couldn’t help but laugh at Stephanie’s bad jokes. 

 

A vertibird attacked the Castle while they were there. It tried to land in the courtyard, but the turrets destroyed it within a few seconds. This only seemed to make Stephanie more anxious about improving the Castle’s defenses.

They received notice that a settlement was being attacked, and then later that the settlement was no longer allied with the Minutemen because they had ignored them in their time of need. Stephanie didn’t seem concerned about this. Garvey was visibly upset, but Danse could tell that he was trying to be respectful when he confronted her about it. “The Castle’s defenses are stronger than they’ve ever been, General. You can’t ignore your obligations right now.”

Stephanie apologized to him and then went back to the turret she’d been assembling. 

When the walls were completed, Stephanie asked Danse to come on a mission with her. “I should probably do something about the backlog of settlements that need help.” She studied something on her Pip-Boy. “Want to kill raiders with me?”

“I would be happy to.”

It was a few hours’ walk to the “settlement,” which was just a half-destroyed shack, a handful of tato plants, and a turret that looked like it had been assembled from the parts of an old car. 

“Why haven’t they fixed their house?” Stephanie whispered to Danse. 

He didn’t have a chance to respond before the settlers saw them. Two men in frayed clothes that had been patched several times ran up to them and shouted over each other, trying to tell Stephanie about all of the horrible things that the raiders had been doing.

She held up a hand. “Where are they?” she asked firmly.

One of them immediately launched into a long story about how a raider had shot his dog, but Stephanie finally managed to get the location of where they were holed up. She agreed to kill them and then walked away as Danse followed her, the settlers’ voices still trailing behind them.

Once they were out of earshot, she turned to Danse again. “Why wouldn’t they at least repair the roof? The mattresses I put together for them are going to get moldy.”

“I don’t know. There seemed to be plenty of scrap metal and wood available.”

“Am I supposed to build a house for them? I don’t know how to build a house.”

“Aren’t you constantly making things?”

“Small things, not _houses_.”

 

They dispatched the raiders easily. It felt nice to fall back into the familiar routine of fighting alongside her. Danse hadn’t realized how much he missed feeling like he was doing the right thing and that he was competent at it.

The settlers were overjoyed to learn that the raiders had been killed. Stephanie reminded them that the Minutemen had been responsible for assisting them and they thanked her with a small pile of caps, a large bag of fresh tatoes, and promises to support the Minutemen if they were ever needed. Danse was impressed and slightly jealous that Stephanie always seemed to be able to convince people to do things. (Convincing people of things had apparently been a significant part of her job from before the war, as she’d explained it, along with doing research and writing long, tedious documents.) Danse was a decent leader but he’d always been socially awkward and, well, he supposed that it made sense now. 

As far as Danse could tell, Stephanie’s position as General of the Minutemen consisted of assisting settlers with various tasks. Stephanie built beds and guard posts and water pumps and helped to plant vegetables. She also agreed to do assignments for them, which mostly involved killing raiders or Super Mutants or ghouls. It all seemed very thankless.

“Why do you waste your time with this?” It was good to help people who needed it, but she surely must have more important things that she could be doing for the Brotherhood.

“Honestly, I’ve been really bad about neglecting Minutemen stuff lately because I’ve had so much else going on. I tried to get Preston to take over the General position because I’m so shitty at it but he wouldn’t do it.” 

 

Another vertibird appeared in the sky while they were on their way back to the Castle. “What the fuck is your problem?” Stephanie yelled at the sky. “We’re just minding our own business! We aren’t even near Brotherhood territory!” 

The Knights aboard it turned out to be more well-armed than last time and it was a difficult fight. Danse's Power Armor was damaged badly and Stephanie was forced to stay behind cover and only lean out occasionally to shoot. There was a brief, horrible moment when Danse thought that Stephanie was going to get killed because he didn't die back in the bunker like he should have, but a well-placed headshot from her managed to bring down the Knight that had been attacking him and then victory suddenly seemed possible. They could do this.

Finally, they managed to kill everyone. They used up the rest of their stimpaks healing themselves, and then Stephanie looked through the bodies on the ground to see if there was anything worth salvaging while Danse tried to repair his Power Armor enough to walk back to the Castle. “This seems like a waste of good soldiers," she said. "I get the feeling that Maxson’s just getting rid of people he doesn’t like by sending them after us.”

Danse wondered if they’d volunteered to try to find him or if they’d been forced into it. 

“Oh hey, what’s this?” Stephanie hoisted up a large weapon. “Damn, no wonder they were hammering us so well.” She let it spin up and fired a few bursts at a nearby tree. “Holy shit, that’s amazing!”

“Have you ever used a gatling laser before?” 

“No. Hell, I’ve hardly ever used laser rifles. I try to stick to old-school weapons because they’re what I’m used to.” She tested it out again, this time at an old train car that was farther away. “It’s so powerful,” she breathed. “I feel almost dirty using it.”

Thankfully, she didn’t notice him doing a double-take. “What do you mean by that?” he finally asked.

“I barely even have to aim. There’s no precision to it at all, and it just keeps going once it spins up so it’s not like you have to make each shot count. Just… point it in the general direction of what you’re trying to kill and it takes care of the rest. It’s kind of hedonistic, you know?” She set the gatling laser down gently on the grass. “This is the opposite of how I normally fight and I should hate it but just testing it out is disgustingly _fun_.”

“You do realize that you can buy one of those at any time from Proctor Teagan?”

She ignored him. “Do you think this could take out a deathclaw matriarch?”

“A what?!”

“I ran into one north of here.”

“What were you doing trying to fight something like that?” At a minimum, she should have brought him with her to make sure that she was safe.

“MacCready and I were in the middle of something else and we happened to see it. We barely escaped with our lives.”

“You need to be careful,” he insisted. “A lot of people are counting on you.”

The edges of her mouth turned up. “I will.”

 

Garvey was impressed with the gatling laser that Stephanie brought back and he seemed thrilled to hear about the settlement that they’d helped. He immediately gave her another assignment, which she promised to complete more quickly this time.

Stephanie eventually agreed to leave Danse at the Castle, after multiple attempts to reassure her that he would be okay. He understood that there were other people who were waiting for her to help them with their own concerns, not to mention that she couldn’t go on missions for the Brotherhood with him alongside her.

Without Stephanie to follow around, Danse finally started to pay attention to her friends who were staying at the Castle. There was the man Stephanie had hired at a bar, who spontaneously told Danse that he was a better shot than Stephanie was and that Danse shouldn’t believe anyone who said otherwise, and the woman who she’d hired at a cage fighting arena who asked Danse if he had any Psycho every time she saw him. The only one who was actually kind to Danse was a synth that Stephanie had rescued from a Vault, who offered to teach Danse how to pronounce his own name correctly, unlike the other synth who she’d rescued from a different Vault who responded to everything Danse said with some kind of sarcastic remark. There was also a woman who Stephanie met in Diamond City, who just rolled her eyes every time Danse spoke.

The only person who didn’t have a story about meeting Stephanie was Deacon, who Danse recognized as the man who had been with her at the police station. Deacon was just… there, and as far as anybody knew, he was Stephanie’s closest friend. Their relationship seemed to consist of strangely cryptic conversations that Danse couldn’t begin to understand, wild stories that couldn’t possibly be true, and making fun of each other. It also seemed to be an entirely platonic friendship, which made Danse happier than it should have. He asked Stephanie once how she had met Deacon, and she explained that “Oh, it was the first time I visited Bunker Hill. He was pretending to be a caravan guard but he was actually there as a mercenary. I think he was there to kill someone? Anyway, I caught him, and he bought me a drink, and we’ve been working together ever since.”

Danse didn’t think about it until a week later, when Deacon happened to mention that he and Stephanie knew each other because they were in the same book club.

“Yeah, Deacon’s a compulsive liar,” Stephanie said when he asked her about it. “Don’t believe anything he tells you.”

 

Danse was keenly aware that he didn’t really fit in here and that it was at least partially his fault. He’d never really been good at interacting casually with people, especially those who seemed to hold strange and dangerous opinions like these did. Still, he was very grateful that he wasn’t alone.

 

As far as Danse knew, Stephanie still hadn’t gone back to check in with the Brotherhood, and he was getting concerned. He understood that she’d been worried about him and she apparently had even more obligations than he’d realized, but she was seriously jeopardizing her future with them. As a Paladin, she was expected to show even more commitment than she had before. Danse tried to bring up the subject several times but she just gave a vague answer or brushed him off. 

Finally, he asked directly. “Why haven’t you gone back to the Prydwen yet?” 

She opened her mouth, and then closed it quickly. A sigh. “I’m not going back to the Brotherhood.”

“ _Why not_?” he realized that he was almost yelling. “But why not?” he repeated, softer.

“The fact that they’ve repeatedly tried to kill me isn’t enough of a reason?”

“They only want to kill me, and you know that. Something else is keeping you away and I need to know what it is.”

“Danse, I-“ Another sigh. “We need to talk.” She stared at something in the direction of his chest. “Somewhere more private than this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Can you meet me back at my apartment in Diamond City?”

“Of course, but what-“

“There's a conversation that we need to have, but I warn you that it isn’t going to be a happy one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my game, Danse kept yelling "Ad victoriam!" while he was killing BoS soldiers and at first I thought it was just bad gameplay/story integration, but then it started to sound defiant and I kind of love that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters involve some heavy stuff, so it's probably a good idea to check the tag list. You're welcome to ask questions in the comments if you want more specific content warnings. 
> 
> Recommended listening: [Hurricane by MS MR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO-K1-yB8zA) and [Fireproof by The National](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJKB6RGQ9QA).

Stephanie was already at her apartment by the time Danse arrived.

“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” she said as he exited his Power Armor. She gestured in the direction of her kitchen table and he sat down. She rummaged around in a cooler until she found a bottle of what looked like vodka. “The Institute has their crows everywhere and nowhere is completely secure, but this is the only space that I have complete control over. Do you want anything to drink?”

He shook his head.

She sat down across from him. She unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a sip while Danse watched. “So, I was thinking that I’d start with the big revelations and then fill in the rest. Please don’t shoot me, all right?” She looked so oddly calm that he wasn’t sure whether or not this was a serious request.

“What are you saying?”

“I promise that I won’t try to hurt you unless you attack me. I’m just going to be talking and drinking. You’re free to leave any time you want, and I won’t try to stop you.” She drank again, longer this time. 

He felt anxiety start to build in his chest. “I- Of course I won’t shoot you, but what’s going on?”

She took another drink from the bottle, and then a deep breath. “I’m a Railroad agent. I also work for the Institute and I’m expected to be their next director.”

Danse’s hand twitched toward his rifle, but he forced himself to hold still. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There had to be some mistake. He reminded himself that if she’d wanted to hurt him, she’d already had several opportunities to do so.

“Thanks for not shooting me.” She drank again. Danse wordlessly reached for the bottle once she’d set it down on the table and when she didn’t stop him, he took a sip from it himself. The alcohol burned in his mouth. 

“Okay, the background information: I was married before the war. My husband was an asshole. He was also in the military. It wasn’t too bad while he was deployed because I didn’t have to deal with him, but then he got injured and he came back even meaner than before, and then I got pregnant.” She drank some more vodka, keeping her hand clutched tightly to the neck of the bottle as if for support. “I knew that I shouldn’t have let him fuck me. It was-“ She shook her head. “So, at that time I was working around 80 hours per week and my diet was mostly coffee. Not the most healthy lifestyle for a pregnant person, so I quit my job and then I got to spend even more time sitting at home while my husband yelled at me.”

Danse stared at her. Out of all the things she’d told him so far, it was the most difficult to imagine her as a mother. 

Her eyes lit up briefly. “I was supposed to start teaching at Massachusetts Bay University in the spring, when the baby was a bit older. I wanted a job with better hours so that I could spend more time with my kid. It was going to be a big decrease in salary—it wasn’t even a tenure track position, not that that probably means anything to you—but I was actually really looking forward to it.”

Another drink. She stared at a space on the table between them. “It got worse after my son was born. My husband started hitting me. He didn’t do it very often or very hard, but still, asshole, right?” She drank from the bottle again without looking at Danse.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. He felt like he should say _something_ but his mind was still reeling from everything he’d heard.

“I actually left, once. My husband was home most of the time but I waited until he was at a doctor appointment and I left with my son, but then I came back a few days later because I was stupid and weak and afraid of what he’d do to me and I didn’t think that I could take care of a baby on my own.” She paused to drink again, and let her hand slide off of the bottle this time. “If I’d been brave enough to stay away, my son and I would have died when the bombs fell. Instead, all three of us got to go in the Vault and get frozen because my husband had been in the military. Sixty years before I woke up, the Institute broke into the Vault and killed my husband and kidnapped my son.”

“Why would they do that?” Danse asked. He’d been trying to figure out what the Institute had to do with this story.

“They used my son’s DNA to make the gen-3 synths.”

“Gen-3?” 

“The human-looking ones.” _Like you_ went unsaid. “They needed pre-war DNA, and something about how he was so young made it work better. I don’t really understand the biology of it. In between sampling his DNA, the Institute raised him. I always knew he was going to be smart, even when he was a baby.” She almost smiled. “He grew up and eventually became the director of the Institute. All the synths that have replaced people, everything that the Institute has done in the past decade or so- it all happened because I wasn’t strong enough to leave my husband for good.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. His voice sounded weak again.

“I know. Hard not to feel responsible, though.”

She looked up at him, her face as impassive as ever. “They left me frozen in case they ran into problems and needed to use my DNA instead. My son knew about me for a long time but he only decided to unfreeze me last year and I don’t exactly know why.” 

She paused to take a drink from the bottle. 

“As far as I can tell, it’s because he was sick and he was starting to get sentimental in his old age. He never had children of his own so I was his only family and I suppose that he wanted to meet me before he died. I think that he was afraid I wouldn’t want to be part of his life anymore and he’d been told that he was supposed to leave me frozen, so he decided to compromise and just thaw me out and see what happened. I left the Vault and found out that I’d been frozen for over 200 years, so I assumed that my son was long dead. I joined the Railroad and started working for them.” She drank from the bottle. Danse noticed that it was almost half-empty. “Shortly after that, I found out that my son was actually alive and that he was inside the Institute, so the Railroad helped me break in. My assignment was to infiltrate the Institute and get them to trust me until we could destroy it from the inside, so, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

She was part of the Railroad. She probably would have stood up to Elder Maxson for any synth. When she set the bottle down, Danse tipped it back and drank from it. The vodka made his face feel hot. He wondered how Stephanie was able to speak so clearly.

“I’ve been doing jobs for the Institute while the Railroad gets everything ready to free every synth inside and then blow the whole place up.” Danse shuddered involuntarily at the idea of so many synths being unleashed on the Commonwealth. “I’m working with a courser. He’s actually a really nice guy if you can get past the part where he thinks that everyone above ground would be better off dead. Like I said, my son’s been sick for a while but he recently found out that he doesn't have long to live and he decided that he wants to appoint me as his successor. If everything goes according to plan, the Institute will be destroyed before that happens.”

The absolute best-case scenario was that her loyalty to the Railroad was stronger than her loyalty to her own son. It was a disturbing prospect.

She tilted the vodka bottle back to drink from it. Danse noticed that it was more than half empty now. She looked him in the eye. “That’s pretty much it. Do you have any questions?”

“What did happen to your Vault suit?”

She shrugged. “I sold it. Didn’t get much for it, but I suppose they lose most of their value after the first hundred years.”

Danse wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. “Is this why you haven’t reported back to the Prydwen?” 

“Yes. Honestly, I only stayed in as long as I did because of you.” Another drink.

“Why did you join in the first place?”

“I thought it would be useful to be on their good side, but mostly to spy on the Brotherhood for the Railroad. I helped develop a plan to blow up the Prydwen, in case we ever need to.” 

It was as if time had stopped for a moment. Danse couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He could barely breathe. He looked over at Stephanie, who was drinking again and not meeting his eyes. 

It had all been a lie. What he’d perceived as their friendship and loyalty—hell, even the times when he used to think that she was flirting with him—had all been false. She’d been manipulating him the whole time and he’d fallen for it.

“We aren’t going to do anything to the Brotherhood as long as they leave us alone,” she said softly.

He tried to ignore the use of _we_ and _they_. 

He’d sponsored her. One of his last acts as a Paladin had been to invite a traitor into their ranks.

“Why are you telling me this?” His voice cracked.

“I guess it’s because I can. You aren’t going to report me to the Institute.” She glanced up at him, as if to dare him to challenge this statement. “The only person in the Brotherhood who would believe you is Haylen, and I outrank her now.” She calmly went back to drinking. She was moving slowly, with one hand on the bottle and the other resting on the table.

Danse got up from the table, careful to keep his eyes on her hands, and entered his Power Armor. He was thankful that he’d left it so that he didn’t have to turn his back toward her to do this. 

He thought about the monster that had once been Cutler, and remembered the moment afterward when he’d worried that he would never be able to trust anyone again.

She didn’t look up at him as he left. He heard the door slam shut behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV shift!
> 
> Recommended listening: [Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbbmM410WnE)

Stephanie heard the door click in the latch and she slumped down in her chair. She started crying almost immediately, making ugly whimpering noises. 

When she finally tried to stand up, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and had to brace herself against the table for support. She managed to stagger over to the door and lock it, only to feel her stomach lurch painfully. 

Shit, she was going to throw up. She scrambled for the bucket that she normally used for mopping and sort of hunched over it on the floor, gripping the edges tightly. She stared at the bottom of the bucket, her vision swimming. Stephanie coughed and then dry heaved a few times. A teardrop fell from her face and made a dull sound when it hit the bottom. 

She heaved again and actually started vomiting for what felt like several minutes. After she eventually stopped gagging, she sat back and closed her eyes. It didn’t help with the dizziness. She thought that she should probably empty the bucket outside but she didn’t want the guards to see her like this and she definitely wouldn’t be able to go upstairs and sneak anywhere using the roof exit. 

She remembered what Danse’s face had looked like (sad, disappointed, and a little bit afraid, which was the worst part) and started crying again.

It was ten minutes at most before she threw up again. Stephanie tried to remind herself that this was just her body’s way of protecting her from dying of alcohol poisoning. _Fuck._ She remembered when she used to be good at drinking. Between her career and Nate’s career, she’d spent way too much time at various work events where she’d been expected to drink heavily while acting like she was completely sober. She stopped drinking when she got pregnant and she’d never really picked it back up again and now she apparently had forgotten that you’re supposed to pace yourself. 

At first it was slightly easier to talk with every sip that she took, and then it stopped helping but she kept drinking in the hopes that it would start working again. Eventually, she was just trying to see how much she could drink and still talk coherently because it was something to distract her from what she was saying.

Stephanie managed to stand up and very carefully carry the bucket over to her bed without falling over or spilling anything. Almost immediately after she set it down on the floor, she had to crouch down so that she could vomit again. When it was over, she collapsed on the bed. 

She’d never really been self-destructive like this before. She was ashamed to think that it would be the last memory that Danse would have of her. At least he’d still remember her as the person who saved his life. Granted, she’d only had to do that because she ruined his life in the first place and almost got him killed. He probably would’ve been promoted to Sentinel by now if he had never met her, and he would actually be _happy_. She started crying again.

The next several hours were spent huddled on the bed in a cold sweat, crying pathetically in between leaning over to vomit. Her body still wasn’t finished after her stomach was empty and she’d thrown up what looked like everything she’d eaten that day, so she started vomiting up spit and mucous mixed with something that smelled and tasted suspiciously like blood. Her nose wouldn’t stop running but she didn’t think that she would be able to stand up, so she blew it on the sleeve of her shirt. 

Around 5am, she noticed that she’d managed to go an hour without throwing up and she figured that the worst of it was probably over. She wasn’t sure when she passed out.

 

Stephanie woke up and panicked briefly when she realized that she had no idea how much time she’d lost. She flailed around for her Pip-Boy until she saw that it was the afternoon of the same day and year. 

She relaxed enough to notice that her head was pounding and she really needed to pee. Stephanie shoved her pants down and squatted over the bucket next to her bed. It was only midway through that she realized that based on the sound, she was pissing in an empty bucket. She couldn’t even smell stale vomit, either. Actually, her home smelled like radstag soup, which was allegedly an excellent hangover cure.

“Deacon?” she called out.

“Professor! You’re awake!” His voice was coming from the kitchen behind her. “Incidentally, thanks for drawing my attention just now. I really needed to see that.”

“Like I haven’t seen you in your underwear more times than I can count.”

“ _My_ pasty-ass legs have often been described as a gift to the Commonwealth.”

She finished and stood, pulling up her pants. When she turned around she saw that Deacon was sitting at her kitchen table, in the same chair where Danse had been last night. He was leaning back precariously with his boots resting on the table and a book open on his lap, even though he was looking at her- or at least his face was turned toward her. It was hard to tell with the sunglasses. A very dirty set of Diamond City Guard catcher’s gear was on the table next to him. The goddamn vodka was still where she’d left it. She shuddered at the sight of it.

“Well, I was planning to sanitize my kitchen table anyway,” Stephanie announced to no one in particular. She sat down—in a different chair than the one she’d used last night—and rested her head on the table. She could see a pot of soup that had been left to simmer on the stovetop. 

“I definitely remember locking the door last night.”

“I have confidence that you did. Absolutely.”

She wondered how long he’d been there and decided that she’d rather not know. Her head throbbed especially hard and she groaned. “Did you bring it?”

“Yeah. Put it in the correct box and everything.” He gestured toward her workshop.

“You’re the best.”

Deacon closed the book and passed her a can of water.

“Thanks.” She sat up and took it gratefully. The water felt heavy in her stomach but it seemed to be staying there, at least for now.

“I get the feeling that you had a rough night?”

Stephanie groaned again. “I told him everything.”

“Everything, huh?”

“Well, not _that_.”

Deacon jerked his head as if to say _yeah, obviously_.

“He took it better than I thought he would.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ why you tried to drink yourself to death.”

“That happened while he was here.”

Deacon just shrugged in response. 

She drank the water very slowly and watched him take off his sunglasses and use the end of his shirt to rub the lenses. He put them back on, grumbled, and tried to clean them again. Deacon lifted his sunglasses up to his eyes once more and apparently gave up on them because he set them down on the table and fished a different pair out from one of his pockets. 

“Thank you for all of this,” she said. “I’d say we’re even now.”

“Nah, I probably still owe you.”

“I know you’re good for it.” 

They sat in silence for a little while longer, until Deacon got up. “Hey, I need to head out.”

Stephanie nodded in response, still distracted by the pounding in her head. She was distantly aware of him strapping on the guard uniform. “I’ll see you around,” he said.

“Take care of yourself.”

He looked serious for a moment. She cocked her head at him. “It’ll be all right,” he said softly.

“Liar.”

Deacon huffed out a surprised laugh that she thought sounded genuine. 

 

Once he was gone, she thought about the night before and started crying again. She didn’t stop until she checked the time again and felt lazy and disgusting for wasting most of the day.

Stephanie was tempted to just throw away the rest of the vodka but it was too useful for sterilization, so she poured what was left into a smaller vial that went into her med kit. She stored the bottle with her other glass bottles that she used to make molotov cocktails. 

She was never going to see Danse or his biceps or his gigantic eyebrows ever again. It almost didn’t seem real.

She cleaned her kitchen table and emptied the bucket that she’d peed in. After that, she washed her hands and ate some of the soup. She couldn’t get very much down without feeling sick but she had to admit that it was helping. 

Stephanie thought about the conversation last night and wished that she’d been more tactful about everything. He wasn’t going to be happy with what she was saying no matter what, but she could have been less of an asshole about it. 

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and almost threw up again. To say that she looked horrifying would be putting it mildly. Her hair was everywhere, the skin around her eyes was swollen from all the crying, and there were burst capillaries mixed in with the freckles on her face. If anybody asked, she could probably convince them that her Molerat Disease was flaring up. At least she’d managed to not throw up in her hair. 

Stephanie washed her face and brushed her teeth. She wished that she could take a bath but she couldn’t justify spending so much money on water when she had a surplus of clean water back at the Castle. She brushed the knots out of her hair and twisted it back into a bun, and then changed into clean clothes and strapped her armor on over them.

It took another half hour to leave her house because she couldn’t stop crying. 

When she finally managed to get the door open, she shut it immediately because the bright sun made her headache burst into throbbing pain. She put on the sunglasses that were still sitting on the table (she’d lifted them up to clean the table but she hadn’t decided where to put them yet) and slowly, carefully, still feeling somewhat like she was dying, she left the apartment.

 

Stephanie looked through her to-do list, trying to find something useful to occupy herself. She’d already wasted too much time today being a goddamn drama queen. Nick’s office wasn’t too far away and he always had cases that he needed help with. She also needed to finish something for Tom, and Curie had asked her to-

She felt like even more of an asshole when she realized that, for the first time since she’d been thawed out, she didn’t want to even think about synths or the Railroad. 

There had to be something else that she could work on, right? As she was heading toward the gates of Diamond City, she noticed Nat outside of the Publick Occurrences office. Come to think of it, why didn’t she hang out with Piper more often? It had been a while but she remembered that Piper was kind and smart and good with a pistol. She knocked on the door of her office.

“Oh, hey Blue! No offense, but you look like shit. Did something happen?” She stepped aside and gestured for Stephanie to come in.

Stephanie winced. _That_ was why she didn’t hang out with Piper more often. “Do you mind not calling me Blue? I’m too hungover to come up with a bullshit reason why. You can call me Steph if you want something one-syllable, or I’ve got a Silver Shroud costume that I need to bring to Goodneighbor if you like to nickname people based on the color of their clothes.” She tensed, feeling her heart start to race with anxiety.

“Uh, sure, I’ll try to remember that.” 

Stephanie relaxed. Piper was looking at her expectantly. She tried to make conversation. “So, how’s the paper doing?”

“Pretty good! Sales are up 6%.”

“That’s great, congratulations!”

“Thank you!” Piper was looking at her again, like she was about to ask why Stephanie looked so awful.

“How’s Nat?”

Piper made a face. “Grounded right now.”

"Huh, okay." Stephanie's mind raced. How does one ground a child? What are you even supposed to ground them for? She probably would have been a terrible mother. Stephanie looked through the list on her Pip-Boy, trying to find an assignment that was close by. “Hey, Vadim wanted to talk to me about something. Would you be able to help me?”

“Sure, I’d be happy to! I wonder what Vadim is up to now…”

They made their way to the Dugout Inn. The smell of alcohol made Stephanie’s stomach clench painfully, and she regretted not looking for a different mission that didn’t take place in a bar. She was about to suggest this to Piper when Vadim noticed them. Evidently, he wanted to help Travis the radio host and had decided that the best way to do that was to stage a bar fight. Stephanie looked to Piper for guidance. She’d never been in a bar fight before, but she didn’t know what was normal nowadays. Would it look weird if she admitted to that? For all she knew, bar fights had become a common way of settling disputes. No matter how much time she’d spent here in the future, she couldn’t escape the reminders that she didn’t really belong.

Piper apparently had never been in a bar fight, either. Stephanie let out the breath that she’d been holding.

They decided to go outside to wait until nightfall, because Stephanie didn’t think that she could handle the smell anymore. She took notes for Piper and did an admirable job at keeping a straight face while Piper interviewed various Diamond City residents about the possibility that synths had infiltrated the city. Piper declared that Stephanie’s handwriting was awful but she took excellent notes. After Piper had exhausted everybody who was willing to talk with her, Stephanie used the armor bench next to Myrna’s shop to add more pockets to her armor while Piper chain-smoked and asked questions about everything that Stephanie was doing. Without discussing it beforehand, they both smiled brightly in unison when Myrna glared at them, which only made her glare harder. Stephanie even managed to eat an entire bowl of miso ramen without feeling nauseated. 

 

The fight was… scary. There was a very large raider looming over Stephanie and she had to constantly ignore her instinct to run away and pull out her rifle. Okay, he was probably only about the same height that she was but he was definitely big and scary. Why did anybody ever get into close-combat fights? She always preferred to kill people from as far away as possible, ideally before they’d noticed her. 

The raider swung at her, wide and slow, and she ducked out of the way. He laughed at her. Fuck, he could probably tell how scared she was. She was just supposed to stand there and let him try to hit her and she couldn’t even shoot him. She should’ve brought a shock baton or a baseball bat or something.

_What would X6 do?_ she thought. She tried to carry herself the way he did, the physical embodiment of cold precision. She stood up straight and turned to the side to present a smaller target, and then bent her knees slightly so that it would be harder to knock her over. She remembered learning at a self-defense class or something that it’s a good idea to try to break an attacker’s nose with the heel of one’s hand. It was better than any other idea that she could come up with, anyway. Stephanie smoothed her face into an emotionless mask and struck as quickly as she could. The raider staggered a bit. Okay. This might actually work.

She was trying to figure out what she should do next when the raider collapsed to the floor. Travis was standing there and holding a large wine bottle up with a dazed look on his face, like he couldn’t believe that he’d just done that. “Nice job, Travis! You really saved my ass there.”

“Uh, yeah, I did! Did I?” 

She’d have to tell X6 that he was her role model. She might even get him to laugh out loud again.

Their next assignment was to hook Travis up with a woman. Scarlett was cute and she seemed to actually be interested in him, which made it a lot easier. 

Unfortunately, it only got worse after that. Vadim had evidently been kidnapped and Travis was freaking out and blaming himself for everything. He led them to an old brewery full of raiders. At least this was a problem that Stephanie could solve by shooting people. 

The sight lines were all over the damn place but it wasn’t too difficult of a fight. The only problem was that she couldn’t stop thinking about Danse and how she’d gotten used to fighting with him. He was almost unstoppable in his Power Armor and he’d always made Stephanie feel stronger by association. Piper and Travis held their own (Piper more so than Travis), but Stephanie still felt like she needed to keep an eye on them to make sure that they were okay, and it really wasn’t the same. 

After they finally rescued Vadim, Piper and Travis decided to go back to Diamond City with him while Stephanie headed off on her own toward the Castle. She thought, for at least the fifth time recently, that if Preston had better self-esteem he would have insisted on taking over as General a long time ago and she wouldn’t have stopped him. Even when she did try to tackle her ever-growing list of Minutemen obligations, she had no idea what she was doing. It wasn’t like she didn’t care or that she didn’t support the cause, it’s just that she was really busy working as a triple agent and the Minutemen usually ended up as the lowest priority. She had hoped that deserting from the Brotherhood would give her more time but that hadn’t really panned out so far. 

She wondered where Danse was, and how he was doing. He was probably far away from the Commonwealth by now; he’d only stayed for her in the first place. It was kind of him to fight alongside her even after she ruined his life but it was probably safer for him now.

As if on cue, a vertibird flew overhead and circled back around to hover over the area where Stephanie was. She raised her arm in the air and lifted her middle finger.

 

Stephanie spent the rest of the night in Goodneighbor, because it seemed marginally more classy for the General of the Minutemen to come staggering back first thing in the morning than to stagger back in the middle of the night. 

She listened to Diamond City Radio on the way to the Castle in the morning and she had to admit that Travis had gotten a lot better. Something about a near-death experience had done wonders for his confidence, or at least his radio presence. Also, she was going to have Butcher Pete stuck in her head for the rest of the day.

She was really looking forward to bathing. It was ridiculous to think that she was eager to take a sponge bath in a small tub of tepid water. She could remember a time when taking a hot shower every day was a minimum standard for hygiene and not an impossible luxury.

 

_He was there._

At least, there was somebody wearing Power Armor and standing in the courtyard and Stephanie couldn’t think of who else it could be, unless the Atom Cats were visiting. 

She stopped in front of him and looked up and _fuck_ , why did Danse have to look so handsome at a time when she was making him hate her? Stephanie honestly didn’t care if he’d just come to return one of the weapons she gave him or to yell at her before leaving for good. It was worth it just to see him again.

“I went back to your home in Diamond City but you weren’t there, so I thought I would wait for you here.”

She nodded. There was an awkward silence. “Look, I’m sorry for getting all emotional at you the other night.” Nate had always said that she was too hysterical. “I’d had like seven hours of sleep over the past three days and I usually don’t drink that much. I should’ve at least been nicer about what I was saying.”

Danse looked as awkward and uncomfortable as someone possibly could in a full suit of Power Armor. “There’s something that I should have said that night, and it's been on my mind. Your husband’s behavior was unacceptable and you deserve better.”

She clenched her hands tightly into fists, forcing herself to blink back the tears that were forming. She badly wanted to pull his face down and kiss him right now. Instead, she forced herself to speak. “There’s something that I should’ve said to you, too. You asked why I was telling you everything and I left out part of the answer.” She took a deep breath. This was a lot more difficult without liquor. “My husband used to scream at me and threaten me when I said something that he didn’t want to hear, so it was pretty easy to get in the habit of lying constantly. It’s not like I’ve spent a lot of time around honest people, either; all my friends before the war were lawyers and Deacon’s probably my best friend now. You’re different, though. You’re straightforward and sincere and you don’t care what anybody thinks of you.” Danse could be an asshole sometimes, but he was an asshole in very consistent, predictable ways and it was easy to trust him. “I have a lot of respect for you and I thought that I should be honest with you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I disagree with many of your actions but I’m honored by your respect.”

He still wasn’t leaving.

“So, are you going to stay?”

“I- Yes, of course. Unless you don’t want me to?”

“No, I definitely want you around. I enjoy talking to you and killing people with you and I keep getting sunburned when you aren’t there to block the light.”

“I am glad to be of service, then,” he said, and Stephanie felt hopeful in a way that she hadn’t been in about 215 years.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, Mass Effect Andromeda kind of took over my brain for a while there. I've decided that Stephanie!Ryder would be an infiltrator and use mostly logical and casual dialogue options. I feel like she'd romance Peebee, but I can also make a case for Liam.
> 
> Recommended listening for this chapter: [What Makes A Good Man? by The Heavy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUbYdjO7tE4)

It was even more uncomfortable between them than it had been during the time period immediately after Stephanie first entered the Institute. It wasn’t just that Danse suspected she might be working against the Brotherhood- he now knew for sure that this was true and he was powerless to do anything about it.

“It wasn’t some kind of elaborate undercover thing,” she’d said when he brought up the subject. “I get the feeling that you’re making it a lot more dramatic in your head. I just heard Haylen’s signal and I was all ‘Hey, I’m pretty good at shooting people and I’m not afraid of heights. Maybe I should try to get on the Brotherhood’s good side and see if they’ll let me on their blimp’ and then my boss said ‘That’s a good idea!’”

Logically, it made sense to trust her, or at least believe her. Stephanie had had unrestricted access to Boston Airport and the Prydwen for months and there had been no indication whatsoever that she had tried to sabotage anything, and if she was some kind of sleeper agent then she wouldn’t have compromised her position by openly supporting Danse and abandoning the Brotherhood. 

If he believed her—and he did, despite everything—the Railroad wasn’t going to be a problem as long as the Brotherhood didn’t target them, and there was very little risk of that happening. There was no reason to go after the Railroad while the Institute was still a concern.

 

Stephanie continued to act like she felt responsible for Danse but she gave him more space, leaving him alone at the Castle while she went off on various missions. He once made the mistake of asking her what she was going to do and she explained that she was assisting an Institute synth who had replaced a farmer because people were starting to suspect him. When she came back after that mission, she brought him a laser rifle that was unlike anything he’d ever seen. He tested it out and found that it had pinpoint accuracy even up to great distances, but without sacrificing any power. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Stole it from the Institute. I figured that you could put it to better use. Be careful, though- that’s a prototype that a total of eight people had access to, so watch who you use it in front of.”

“Understood,” he said weakly.

 

“Why join the Railroad?” he asked her once, during a very quiet late-night conversation after she had confirmed that it was safe to talk openly (and when had _that_ become something that he even thought about?).

“The fact that I’m a bleeding-heart idealist isn’t enough of a reason?”

“From what I understand, you woke up in a strange environment where you didn’t know anyone and you decided that the best course of action was to commit yourself to a controversial organization that many people doubt the existence of. I think that deserves an explanation.”

“Fair enough. I could understand why everyone in the future was so afraid of synths, but it seemed obvious to me that they were just as much victims of the Institute as everybody else. I was worried that I was just being naive until I met the Railroad and I found people who had grown up here and still agreed with me.”

It did seem like a naive viewpoint, not to mention a dangerous one. “So you consider synths to be human?”

“There isn’t really a straightforward answer to that.” She gave a lopsided smile. “Back when I was in law school, one of my friends proposed to his girlfriend with a ring that had a lab-created diamond, and some people were horrified when they found out that he hadn’t given her a ‘real’ diamond. Inflation was out of control and we all had horrible student loans, but tradition is important, you know? Anyway, because we were pretentious fucks who were trying to put off studying, there was this long, ongoing discussion about what made a diamond a ‘real’ diamond- was it the process by which it was made, or was it the end product itself? If you end up with something that has all the properties of a naturally-made diamond to the point of being indistinguishable from one, does the fact that it was made deliberately in a short time as opposed to accidentally over a long time make it less special or less real?”

Danse could see where she was going with this but he wasn’t sure how to respond.

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anyway; you can’t really equate people with rocks. Besides, I have synth friends who insist that they definitely aren’t human, and it isn’t coming from a place of self-hatred. I think the important question is not ‘Are synths human?’ but ‘Is it possible for someone who isn’t human to be entitled to personhood and the fundamental rights associated with it?’, and if the answer to the second question is yes then the first question doesn’t matter as much.”

“That is a… novel argument." He didn’t want to argue with her but he wasn’t sure what to think of anything that she was saying.

“I’ve noticed that your opinions about synths don’t seem to have changed at all.”

“Synths are dangerous,” he said firmly. “The fact that I myself am one does not change anything. I don’t know how much of… _of who I am_ came from the Institute, but at some point they created me to serve their own ends and as long as I have any will that is my own, I refuse to be something that is dangerous to humanity.” 

She ducked her head in acknowledgment. “Fair point.” She chewed at her lip before saying carefully, “I’ve been thinking about your history, trying to figure out how much of it actually happened to you. Are you interested in hearing my speculations?”

Danse felt a flare of anxiety but he nodded anyway. He didn’t think she could say anything that he hadn’t already stayed up all night worrying about.

“So, I think the first thing we can establish was that your DNA was the same as the DNA of Danse who enlisted in the Brotherhood. Assuming they did a comprehensive medical exam on you right when you enlisted like they did for me?”

“You’re referring to the exam that you refused to take seriously?”

“Anyway, they can’t make synthetic clones of people as far as I know, which means that you—M7—are the one who enlisted and you didn’t kill and then replace a Brotherhood soldier. In case you were worried about that?”

He had, actually, been terrified of that possibility.

“Even if they could do the cloning thing, it’s really farfetched. You haven’t been in the Commonwealth before this, have you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“They don’t normally send synths very far away because they need to stay in communication with them. Besides, assuming they sent you to spy on the Brotherhood, it doesn’t make sense for them to completely lose track of you and for you to forget that you’re a synth but remember everything else about your cover. All of the synths I’ve met who replaced people are completely aware that they’re synths who work for the Institute.”

Danse scowled but she ignored it.

“So the most likely possibility is actually that the Railroad wiped your memories and gave you fake ones, and then smuggled you out to the Capital Wasteland.”

“You’re saying that the _Railroad_ did this to me?!” He’d always assumed that it was the Institute. The idea of the Railroad giving him a lonely, unhappy childhood that had never even been real was somehow worse.

“The Railroad doesn’t forcibly wipe anyone’s memories if the synth refuses, but a lot of escaped synths don’t want to remember anything about the Institute, or they want false memories because it will help them avoid detection. They try to avoid implanting memories of living family members or friends because then the person will try to look them up. Synths get a generic backstory that will sound believable and they get dropped off somewhere far away from the Commonwealth. They also usually do facial reconstruction and sometimes voice changes.”

If her conjecture was correct, he’d chosen this. He felt numb.

Her forehead creased in the way it did when she was concerned about him. “Look, this is the most logical explanation: you hated the Institute so you escaped and decided that you wanted to forget about everything and just be human. Once you had your freedom, you used it to start your own business and make friends and enlist in the Brotherhood of Steel. You didn’t even remember the Institute and you joined up with the people who want to fight it. I think that says a lot of good things about who you are.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you want me to ask around the Railroad? They don’t keep records with identifying information but someone might remember you. Or I could try to break into the terminals at the Institute and see if I can find anything about you?”

“No, even though I appreciate the thought.” As far as he was concerned, his life began when he joined the Brotherhood. Still, there were too many thoughts swirling around in his head and it was a lot to process. “I need some time to think,” he said finally.

“Of course. Let me know if I can help with anything.”

“I will. And thank you.”

She still looked concerned but she smiled at him.

* * *

Stephanie received a report that feral ghouls were attacking a settlement at Starlight Drive-In. “Shit, I had no idea that we had a settlement there,” she’d muttered to Danse once Garvey was out of earshot. “I am the _worst_ General. Why do I still have this job again?”

Danse was about to suggest that it was because nobody else was willing to take it, but then it occurred to him that Stephanie might try to offer him the position.

She departed with Valentine and once again, he was left at the Castle with people who made it clear that they only barely tolerated him. Danse kept to himself and tried to stay busy by making himself as useful as possible. Garvey seemed to appreciate his efforts, at least.

 

He heard thirdhand that Stephanie had radioed to say that the mission would take much longer than she’d planned. The person in charge of the radio was frustratingly vague. “I’ve already told ya everything the General said. She sounded all calm and collected when I talked to her- you’re probably worryin’ yourself over nothing.”

“Of _course_ she sounded calm,” Danse growled at him, “That doesn’t mean anything.”

 

Danse was pacing back and forth in the courtyard, trying to find something to occupy his mind. He noticed that the ghoul mayor was staring at him. Danse glared back at him before retreating into the building. 

He heard footsteps behind him. He could only hope that it wasn’t Hancock trying to antagonize him further. Danse finally turned around and saw Hancock strolling lazily toward him, twirling a knife between his fingers. _Outstanding._ Danse sighed.

“Everyone’s gettin’ together at the Third Rail, end of next week,” Hancock started in without any warning. The knife never stopped moving. “You need to get loosened up, feel me? Gotta be some way to work that stick out of your ass. Don’t make us drag you out there.” He smiled, wide and predatory. Danse glared back at him until he sauntered away.

 

He was patrolling the walls of the Castle when he saw Stephanie in the distance. He jumped down and rushed out to meet her.

“Danse!” she smiled broadly. “It’s good to see you.” She looked healthy, if maybe a bit fatigued. Valentine continued on ahead, leaving them to talk alone.

“Are you all right?”

“Other than the fact that I’m about to get disciplined?”

“What happened?”

“Turns out I set up a radio with a recruitment beacon at the Starlight Drive-In a long time ago. Preston asked me to do it and then I completely forgot about it afterward. I guess a bunch of people decided to move in, for some reason, even though there’s nothing there. There were nine people living there but they didn’t have any food or water and the only bed in the place was a single dirty mattress that had a skeleton on top of it. After we killed the ferals, we had to essentially build the settlement from the ground up and give them our entire supply of stimpaks and Rad-Away just to keep them from dying. I’ll be lucky if they don’t kick me out of the Minutemen.”

“It’s not your fault. You’ve had other priorities.” Even though it probably wouldn’t go over well if Stephanie tried to explain to the Minutemen that she’d been neglecting her responsibilities because she was secretly working for the Institute.

Garvey approached Stephanie as soon as she entered the courtyard. “General, can I have a word?”

“Of course,” she said smoothly before shooting Danse a worried look behind his back. Danse smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging way.

 

She found him shortly after he’d resumed his post on the wall. 

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Apparently the settlers radioed the Castle after we left and made a big deal about we saved their lives and we were so generous and helpful that now they’ll support the Minutemen in any way they can.”

“You aren’t in trouble?” This was excellent, albeit confusing, news.

“Preston just congratulated me and gave me more work to do. I mean I’m glad that the Minutemen don’t have their shit together because I can get away with just about anything, but they really need to get their shit together.”

“The entire organization is shoddy and amateurish,” Danse agreed. 

Stephanie eyed his face for a few moments before speaking. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to come with me on a job?”

“What is it?” Danse was almost afraid to think what she might mention.

“Do you remember the Silver Shroud costume that we found in the comic store? I’m supposed to bring it to Goodneighbor.”

“…Is that all?”

“I should probably warn you that the person we’d be bringing the costume to is a ghoul. He’s like the least feral ghoul ever, though.”

She was inviting him to run an errand for a ghoul. Danse was almost insulted, but it occurred to him that this was very unlikely to be a mission for the Institute, and he didn’t like the idea of her going to Goodneighbor without backup…

“All right,” he said.

“Great! Be ready to leave tomorrow morning.”

 

Stephanie was going to pretend to be a comic book character, and Danse was evidently going to accompany her because his life recently had somehow not been surreal enough. He held onto her belongings and tried not to look at her while she changed clothes in a spare room at the Memory Den. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. Not that he expected an answer that made any sense.

“I’m stopping crime in Goodneighbor.” Which was admittedly an honorable pursuit, despite being a futile one.

“Why can’t you stop crime wearing your armor?”

“Aesthetic,” she said, as if that explained anything.

Once he was finally sure that she was done changing, he looked over to see that Stephanie was scowling at a pathetic-looking submachine gun. “I don’t _have_ want you to leave, but it’s more important that you don’t do anything you don’t want to do. You’re obviously uncomfortable and I never should have brought you along for this. Sorry.”

“I’m not going to abandon you now,” he said immediately. It hadn’t occurred to him to do anything else.

“Thanks.” She paused and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, but she just said “Really, thank you.”

They fought their way through the hospital. She stopped him when they stood outside the door where the ghoul was being held, and asked for her rifle. Danse handed it over and started to speak when she cut him off, “Please, just trust me on this?” Her eyes were wide beneath the brim of her hat.

“All right.”

He stood to the side with his rifle ready and watched her stare down a room full of heavily-armed thugs. Danse knew that she usually preferred to crouch behind him and pick off enemies before they even noticed her but she stood there, out in the open and wearing an attention-grabbing costume, and looked completely unafraid. She spoke in a loud, clear voice, using the same speech patterns as before, and suddenly Danse _got it_. 

He felt chills watching her take on the persona of the fictional vigilante. She’d spent months pretending to be a loyal Brotherhood soldier and fooling everyone; _of course_ she’d be able to seamlessly transform herself into a superhero. He watched in awe as the thugs ran away, more intimidated by her performance than by their actual superior. The leader ghoul moved to kill the other one but Stephanie immediately shot him between his eyes and he fell over, dead. Danse realized that his mouth was open slightly but he didn’t care. He felt like he understood her in a way that he hadn’t before. 

He followed her up the stairs to check on the ghoul that they’d rescued. “Do you need help getting back to Goodneighbor?” she asked, finally speaking in her normal voice.

“No, I can make it on my own. I’ll see you two at Mayor Hancock’s party, won’t I?”

“There’s a party?” Danse asked at the same time that Stephanie turned to him and said “Don’t tell me you’re going to the party, too.”

When he only blinked in confusion, she explained “Hancock’s party, next week? He said he was going to invite you.”

“He was inviting me to a party?” Danse asked slowly. “I thought it was either a threat or a sexual advance.” Stephanie shot him an incredulous look. 

“I hope you’re coming! The party won’t be the same without you guys.”

Stephanie glanced over at Danse, who lifted his hands up to shrug. She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head, and he nodded, sighing to himself. “We’ll be there.”

“I’m so glad!” The ghoul looked like he was about to cry, even though that was probably more from pain, or maybe fear.

 

“Can’t believe I got guilted into going to Hancock’s birthday party,” Stephanie said as soon as they were outside.

“It’s a birthday party?” Danse was still trying to figure out what he’d agreed to attend.

“He claims it’s his birthday and he wants everybody he knows to celebrate it with him. I didn’t think that birthdays were really a thing anymore, but I guess they’re more of a big deal when you’re immortal?”

“I thought you were on good terms with him. Why don’t you want to go?”

“Hancock and I get along fine, I just don’t like parties. Normally I’d hide in a corner with Deacon and we’d talk shit about everyone else, but Deacon’s an _asshole_ who has ‘other plans’ for that night that probably don’t even exist. Either that or his plan is to see if he can get away with impersonating Charlie.”

“I see.”

They walked in silence for a bit before she spoke again. “How in the hell did Hancock make an invite sound like he was threatening you?”

“He was brandishing a knife.” Danse’s voice sounded more defensive than he’d intended.

“Hancock’s always doing that! And besides, what did you think he was going to do you, scratch your armor?”

“The way he was talking and his facial expressions were obviously threatening.”

Stephanie scoffed at him. “Nah, he likes you. Promise.”

* * *

She approached him at the Castle a few days later. “I’ve been working on a surprise for you, but you can’t wear it to Hancock’s party.”

“I can’t wear _what_?”

“Piper talked me into wearing a dress, so that means that you have to dress up, too. Besides, I think it’s going to be crowded and you’d take up too much space.” They arrived at the room that had once been the General’s office, but Stephanie mostly used for storage. She unlocked the door. “Anyway, I hope you like it.”

She had evidently set up a Power Armor stand at some point, and- “Is that Mark V?” he asked, not trying to disguise the excitement in his voice. He couldn’t believe that he was looking a complete set of X-01 Power Armor that was in excellent condition.

“I found it in a building downtown and I’ve been repairing and upgrading it. Each piece is individually treated to be resistant to energy damage. What do you think?”

“It’s amazing! Did you really do all of this for me?” She must have been working on it when he’d assumed she was sleeping.

“Of course I did,” she said softly.

“Stephanie, this is- ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem anywhere near strong enough.”

“You should try it out,” she said, smiling.

He stepped out of the Power Armor that he’d been wearing and hit the release on the new set. The difference was immediately obvious. Danse had put a lot of effort into keeping his scrounged armor maintained, but it had never really fit properly and it wasn’t as smooth or efficient as his Brotherhood armor had been. This, however, was of higher quality than anything he’d ever been issued in the Brotherhood. He knew that Stephanie had no reliable way of getting raw materials for modifications, so she relied on a combination of purchasing shipments from merchants and supplementing with parts that she’d taken from pre-war items. It was a tedious, thankless process, and it must have been incredibly expensive and time-consuming for her to do all of this. 

“Are you all right?”

Danse realized that he hadn’t been speaking, and she couldn’t see his face with the helmet on. “I’m more than all right. I know it’s not sufficient, but thank you so much.”

“I just want you to be safe. I can’t hide behind you if you’re dead.” 

His head felt like it was spinning. He couldn’t understand why Stephanie had gone to these lengths for him and it was too uncomfortable to think about. He tried to change the subject. “What should I wear to the party, if not Power Armor?”

He should have guessed that she’d have boxes of clothing in one of the storage rooms at the Castle, neatly folded and organized by size. She rifled through what looked like a baseball uniform, a tuxedo, a pair of overalls, and a three-piece suit in an eye-searing shade of pastel blue, before pulling out a button-down shirt and a pair of slacks and throwing them at Danse’s chest. “See if these fit you.”

He turned away so that he wouldn’t see if Stephanie was watching him change clothes. “They’re somewhat loose, actually,” he said, before turning back to look at her. He hadn’t worn civilian dress clothes in a very long time (if he ever had?) but he thought they were supposed to fit more closely than this.

“I was planning to line them with ballistic weave.” She stared at him, pursing her lips. “That looks good on you, but you need to roll the sleeves up. Show off your arms.”

He changed back as quickly as possible. Danse was convinced that he felt Stephanie’s eyes watching him, but he couldn’t bring himself to find out for sure. 

 

The next day, Danse spent long stretches of time patrolling in his new Power Armor and thinking, mostly about Stephanie. Once night fell and another guard took his place, he asked Stephanie if he could speak with her in private. She pulled him into the General’s office and closed the door behind them.

“I need to tell you something, and I’m not just saying this because you gave me this Power Armor. I trust your judgment.” 

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know how to be a good person without the Brotherhood’s code to follow and I can’t trust whatever instincts I’ve been programmed with, but I do trust you. I don’t want you to ever hesitate to ask for my help with anything. I’ll be by your side, no matter what.”

“You’ll really help me with _anything_?” 

“Yes, absolutely.”

Stephanie switched on her Pip-Boy and flicked through the different screens until she found a long list of locations, with a sentence or two next to each one.

“What is that?”

“My to-do list, “ she said without looking up. It was no wonder that she always looked like she’d had maybe one hour of sleep. Finally, her finger hovered over an entry labeled _University Point_. “Want to help me kill synths for the Railroad?”

 

As Stephanie explained it, while they were hiding in an abandoned skyscraper that she’d decided was a safe place to talk, her work as a Railroad agent was quite different than Danse had pictured. “I recover caches of supplies, set up surveillance equipment, I’ve killed an assload of Coursers… whatever they need me to do, really. This time, one of the safehouses wants to move synths through here, but the Institute’s got synths all over the area so we have to kill them before we can save the other synths. Do you understand why I hate the Institute now?”

“I’m getting an idea, yes.”

“The Institute sends synths to do its dirty work above ground, so the Gen 1s and 2s and Coursers end up being our primary opposition when we try to free other synths. I mean, I understand the reasoning behind it. Synths are immune to radiation and disease unless they’ve been programmed to mimic the effects and they aren’t able to remember the location of the Institute once they leave, not to mention that there’s no substitute for being able to create a perfect replica of someone." She said this very quickly. Danse nodded in response. "The problem is that they refuse to acknowledge that synths are sentient. If they treated synths more like employees and less like slaves, they wouldn’t escape anywhere near as often and the Institute wouldn’t have to spend so much money on training Coursers and paying off informants all over the Commonwealth. Shit, they’re in the middle of an energy crisis right now and the memory wipes use massive amounts of power, but nobody’s willing to change anything. I’d actually take the Director position if I thought I had a chance to make things better, but…” she trailed off, looking frustrated. “Anyway, my problem right now is that I’ll jeopardize my position with the Institute if I’m caught killing their forces. I’m always careful not to leave any survivors but it’s still really risky. I was hoping that I’d have more plausible deniability with you there.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Don’t start shooting until I do, and don’t let anyone escape.” 

“Acknowledged.”

 

The building was full of skeletal synths, like the ones he and Stephanie had fought on their first mission together. Danse hefted his rifle into position, but Stephanie stopped him. “I want to show you something,” she said. She walked into the middle of a group of synths, but they just stared at her. One of them indicated in a robotic voice that it had scanned her. He’d never seen anything like this. “In case you didn’t believe that I was actually working for them.”

She pulled back the safety on a cruel-looking plasma pistol and aimed it straight at the head of the nearest synth. It stood there motionless, watching her. She looked back into its eyes. “You deserve better. I’m sorry.” She pulled the trigger. Chaos erupted immediately. The synth she’d shot crumpled to the ground while Stephanie dove for cover and the rest of the synths started firing. 

For Stephanie’s sake if nothing else, Danse tried to take the synths down as cleanly as possible. He had no idea if they had the ability to feel pain or even the cognitive capacity to understand it, but Stephanie seemed to not want them to suffer. They made quick work of the rest of the synths and then proceeded to check the perimeter to make sure that none had escaped. 

“Thanks for your help,” she said. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

He hadn’t done anything today that was markedly different from countless missions that he’d gone on for the Brotherhood, but this was significant and they both knew it. Somehow, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he would have thought. “You only have to ask.”

* * *

As instructed, Danse dressed for the party in the clothes that Stephanie had selected for him and rolled the shirtsleeves up to his elbows. The clothes actually did fit better now. 

Stephanie gave a thumbs-up when she saw him. She was wearing a cream-colored dress and had her rifle slung over her shoulder. He was used to seeing her in shapeless leathers with oddly-placed belts that obscured the shape of her body, but she looked both smaller and curvier like this.

She caught him looking at her. “Yeah, I know, this dress makes my hips look huge.”

Danse thought it was actually quite flattering, but he knew next to nothing about fashion so he remained quiet.

 

The stench of alcohol was strong outside the door of the Third Rail. When they went inside, Danse could also smell heavy cigarette smoke and the distinctive burning plastic stink of Jet. Danse had never seen this many ghouls in one place before. The bar was already crowded by the time they arrived, but somehow Hancock noticed the moment they stepped downstairs. “You made it!” he yelled in their general direction. He looked even more intoxicated than usual. Before Danse realized what was happening, he embraced Stephanie and kissed her cheek. At least he wasn’t holding a knife this time. She laughed and kissed the air next to his face. Danse hadn’t realized that Hancock was significantly shorter than Stephanie was.

Hancock finally stepped back and shamelessly looked Stephanie up and down. “I like it. You got nice legs, sister.” 

She giggled in response. “You’re looking dashing as ever, John. Happy birthday!” She almost had to scream to be heard over the crowd and the music in the background.

Hancock turned on Danse next and, to his horror, wrapped his arms around Danse’s chest. His body was actually a lot warmer than Danse would have thought it would be. He glanced over at Stephanie, who shot him a sympathetic look. He could easily push Hancock away, but that would probably be very rude and Stephanie would be unhappy with him-

Hancock finally pulled back. He leered at Danse and said “You’re not too bad lookin’ with the Brotherhood scraped off of you” as if that was some kind of compliment.

“Do you want to get drinks?” Stephanie yelled, thankfully changing the subject. Danse distantly registered that Hancock had wandered off to greet someone else. 

Danse nodded at her. He noticed that there was a crowd of people surrounding the bar but he managed to push through, with Stephanie pressed close against his back. 

“Is beer okay?” Stephanie yelled. 

Danse nodded again. Stephanie leaned over the bar and held out a bag of caps. The Mr. Handy finally noticed them and floated over. Stephanie glared at it while she ordered two beers and a shot of expensive whiskey for Hancock. 

While they were heading away from the bar, Stephanie saw a woman wearing a lab coat and waved at her. “Do you know where Irma disappeared to?” the woman asked.

Stephanie winced sympathetically. “Sorry, we just got here. Good luck!”

“Thank you!” The woman made a long-suffering face and continued to look around.

They managed to find a relatively uncrowded area. There weren’t any tables free, so they stood there awkwardly. Stephanie stood on her tiptoes to speak in Danse’s ear. “I didn’t realize that I would know so many people here.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. He recognized several people who he’d seen at the Castle, but there were many others who he thought must live in Goodneighbor. 

She put a hand on his shoulder to brace herself and pressed her body against his. He could feel her cheek against the side of his own face. She spoke quietly into his ear. “There’s a lot of Railroad activity in Goodneighbor, which means that the Institute has a bunch of the traders and chem dealers on their payroll. I’d say that at least a third of the people here are in some way connected with either the Railroad or the Institute.” 

Danse started. He was aware of Goodneighbor’s reputation as a place where anyone could get away with anything, but he hadn’t realized how far that extended. “Is it even safe for me to be here?” 

“Oh, yeah. Nobody’s actively looking for you anyway, and none of the people here would touch one of Hancock’s friends at his party.”

They stood there for a while. Danse tried to follow the song that the singer was performing, but it didn’t make very much sense and it was difficult to make out the actual words that she was saying. Stephanie was gripping her beer bottle but she didn’t seem to be drinking from it. 

Garvey passed by them, smiling and at least slightly drunk. Stephanie greeted him enthusiastically, “Hey Preston! Didn’t think I’d see you here. It’s great that you’re out having fun!”

“You too! Well, I’ll see you guys around.”

They continued to stand and watch the crowd. Hancock made his way around the room, greeting people and using alcohol and chems at an alarmingly fast rate. At one point, he walked up behind MacCready and slapped his ass. Danse didn’t hear what they said to each other but MacCready turned bright red. Danse looked at Stephanie questioningly.

“You didn’t know that was going on?” 

He shook his head, and she shrugged. He considered trying to make conversation with Stephanie, but it was so difficult to hear anything. Finally, he turned to her and said “Is there something wrong with your drink?”

She shook her head and raised her eyebrows.

“You’ve barely touched it!” he said as loud as he could without shouting.

She pressed her body against him to speak in his ear again. He could feel her breasts through the fabric of her dress. "You're worried that I have a drinking problem and I'm trying to reassure you, but people would ask too many questions if I wasn't drinking at all.”

“You should do what you want. Don’t worry about what I think. I’m not judging you.”

He felt her body slide against his as she stepped back away from him. She smiled at him, but she didn’t drink any faster.

A few minutes later, Piper noticed them from across the room. Danse saw Stephanie make eye contact with her, and then Piper started making her way through the crowd toward them. “Look at you guys! Out in public dressed like normal people and standing around looking all serious.” She sounded like she was very drunk.

“It’s nice to see you, Piper.”

“Jeez, Bl- Stephanie, you really need to lighten up. What do you even do for fun?”

“I read weapon manuals,” Stephanie said as deadpan as possible with her voice raised.

“You are so _weird_.” Piper paused, and then continued. “Look, I need to say something and it’s just because I like you and I care about you. You _seriously_ need to relax or something. You act all snarky and foul-mouthed, but I think it’s just so people don’t catch on that you don’t actually have emotions.”

“You think so?” Stephanie’s voice was, predictably, as stoic as ever.

“No offense or anything.” She jabbed a finger in Danse’s direction. “He’s just as boring as you are; you guys are perfect for each other. I just worry about you, okay?” Without waiting for a response, she raised her arms to hug both of them. They smashed together awkwardly. 

After Piper finally released them and walked away, Danse looked over at Stephanie to make sure that she was all right. She shrugged at him and took a drink from her beer. They were distracted by the sight of Hancock passionately kissing Curie.

“Okay, _that’s_ new to me,” Stephanie said.

They were making out enthusiastically and it was somewhat uncomfortable to watch. Hancock somehow managed to find an empty chair without taking his eyes off of Curie, and he sat down in it with her in his lap. Stephanie pointed to something on the other side of the room, and Danse realized that MacCready was moving toward them. It was hard to tell, but he didn’t _look_ upset. Hancock turned his head to kiss MacCready, with a delighted-looking Curie still on his lap and-

“I’m going outside,” Stephanie said.

“I’ll come with you.”

It was much quieter on the street and the air was easier to breathe. “You know, I remember a time when people used to step outside to smoke.”

“Hmm.”

Stephanie crossed her arms tightly. She stepped closer to Danse but she wasn’t looking at him. “I can fake it. I know you’ve seen me do it.”

“What do you mean by ‘fake it’?” 

“I can act the way people expect me to. I do it all the goddamn time but it just gets exhausting after a while, and then they complain that I’m too uptight when I try to relax.”

Danse tried to figure out what to say to her but she kept going. “I’ve always been boring, but Nate would yell at me about how selfish I was whenever I tried to be happy or do something fun, so I just… didn’t. I worked my ass off and tried to be the person that people wanted me to be, and now I don’t even know what I enjoy or what my real personality is, you know?” She paused. “I guess you do know what that’s like. Sorry.”

He finally made eye contact. “You can always tell me anything, and for what it’s worth, I don’t find you boring at all.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. “It’s nice that I can be more-or-less myself around you and you’ve never given me shit for it.” She looked around. It was dark and the street was mostly deserted because almost everyone was still inside. “Do you want to get out of here? Hancock said we could crash on one of the mattresses in the State House.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

 

It turned out that Stephanie literally meant _one_ of the mattresses. She gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry, he’s got the rest of them reserved for other friends of his and I think he expected us to be fucking on it. I can sleep on the floor if you’re uncomfortable- Wait, what part of what I just said are you making that face about?”

 _All of it?_ “You don’t have to sleep on the floor.” Danse would offer to take the floor, but he knew that she would refuse. “We’ve shared a bed before, haven’t we?”

“All right.” Stephanie looked a lot more nonchalant about the prospect than he felt.

They lay down, next to each other on the small mattress but not actually touching, with their weapons in easy reach. It was true that they had technically done this before, but not since _it_ had happened. It was one thing to share body heat as soldiers but this, whatever they were now, was different.

 

Danse wasn’t aware when he fell asleep, only that Stephanie wasn’t talking—which meant that she was already awake—by the time he woke up. Her face was pressed against his chest and their legs were tangled together. Stephanie’s dress was hiked up around her thighs, which he knew because his hand was resting on the bare skin above her knee. He had a brief fantasy of flipping them over so that he’d be on top of her. She would wrap her thighs around his hips and-

He remembered himself and rolled away from her onto his back, feeling cold and ashamed. 

“Morning,” Stephanie said. She propped her head up on her hand. 

Danse forced himself to sit up. His mouth tasted like stale beer and his clothes were wrinkled from sleeping in them. Nobody else seemed to be awake yet. There was a mattress next to them where a man had passed out with a belt wrapped loosely around his arm. On their other side, a ghoul was sleeping. Further down, there were two women, one of them sleeping on her back and snoring loudly and the other one with her arms and legs holding tight to her companion.

“I guess we should head back and put our armor on, maybe get some actual work done.”

“Agreed.”

He watched Stephanie take the tie out of her hair and comb it as best as she could with her fingernails. Her breasts shifted when she raised her arms. When she was finished, she pulled it back into a bun.

It was cold outside in the early spring air. As they walked back to the Castle, with Danse following Stephanie’s lead and sneaking to avoid being noticed by Super Mutants, he thought about what she’d said last night. _I can be more-or-less myself around you._ Despite everything, or perhaps _because_ of everything, he’d always felt accepted by her. He hoped that she felt the same with him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the alternate universe where this story is a Bioware game and Danse is the player character, this is the part where Rockets' Red Glare happens and Danse never sees Stephanie again unless he's managed to get her approval up high enough.
> 
> Recommended listening: [Break the Fall by Laura Welsh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yDHurugc6E)

“Your offer to hold me if I ever need it- is that still good?” The request came seemingly out of nowhere. She looked fine, as far as Danse could tell.

“Of course it is. What happened?”

“Can we…?” Stephanie gestured down the hallway. Danse followed her to her office, where she locked the door behind them. He exited his Power Armor and she immediately slumped against his chest.

“What’s wrong?”

She buried her face in his shirt and wrapped her arms tightly around him. Danse gently hugged her. He looked around the room but none of the boxes stacked against the stone walls had any guidance for him. 

After a moment, he was startled to realize that she was crying. It was almost completely silent but she was shaking and he could hear very faint sobs. Danse rubbed her back and she held him tighter. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that. Finally, she tilted her head so that she could speak. “Thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you.” He rested his head against hers.

“Did someone hurt you?” There was a dangerous edge in Danse’s voice but he didn’t care. He’d never seen her act like this before.

“It’s just stupid Institute bullshit. I know this stuff makes you uncomfortable.” Her body felt tense.

“You can tell me.” He stopped rubbing her back but he kept his hand there. It seemed awkward to still be embracing her but he didn’t want to let go of her if she didn’t want him to.

“I warn you, it’s pretty pathetic.” When Danse didn’t respond, she continued. “I bumped into a synth today. He was repairing something in one of the hallways and I wasn’t looking where I was going because I was distracted by the 64 other things that I’m supposed to be doing. I knocked into him pretty hard and he stumbled so I said something like ‘Oh, excuse me, are you all right?’ because my parents didn’t raise me to be a goddamn asshole, but this scientist was walking by and he started making fun of me, saying that I wouldn’t mistake them for people anymore once I’d been there longer, only he just kept going on and on and he was so fucking patronizing about it. The synth didn’t even react. He just kept tightening and loosening the same bolt so that he wouldn’t have to turn around and look at us- Fuck, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. You don’t need to worry about it and I know I need to do better and- I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.“ She started sobbing again.

“If it’s causing you so much stress then you should probably stop.”

She pulled back away from him immediately. Her face was still stained with tears but her expression was hard. “It’s not exactly that easy.”

“You have other options.” The last he’d heard, Liberty Prime was still being built, but it seemed like a much safer choice than infiltrating the Institute from the inside.

“Look, to be honest—because I’m trying to do that lately—I’ve been stalling. For a long time, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand over her face. “There’s some drama about a beryllium agitator. The exact science is outside of my area of expertise, but basically the Institute and the Brotherhood both want it and the Institute is willing to go to war and if that happens, a lot of Brotherhood lives are going to be lost.”

“You have to warn-“

“Would you believe that I tried that? I went up to the Prydwen to try to tell them what’s going on, but they’ve decided that it’s more important to take out the Railroad and they want me to be the one to do that.”

“What?! Why?” Danse was panicking. How long had she been sitting on all of this information? He might have been able to smooth things over if he was still a Paladin but as it stood, Stephanie was in a very difficult situation and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“That’s the position I’m in. The Institute is getting impatient because they’re waiting for me to lead the fight against the Brotherhood, the Brotherhood won’t do anything until I attack the Railroad, and the Railroad doesn’t care what happens to the Brotherhood as long as I remain in good standing with the Institute. I’ve just been running bullshit errands and stalling for time while I try to find a solution, but I don’t see a way out of this without turning the Brotherhood against me for good.”

“You can’t seriously be considering that!”

“It’s not like it’s an easy choice to make but I have to do it.” She was frantic, with her eyes wide and her hands gesturing wildly.

“How can you just say that, after everything-“

“They’re actively trying to kill you!” She was almost shouting. It occurred to Danse that this was the most emotion he’d ever seen her express.

“That’s not the point!” 

“I understand that the Brotherhood changed your life and made you who you are and I respect that, but I’m running out of options here. They won’t stop until they kill you and you’re _defending_ them!” It sounded like she was starting to cry again.

“What do you expect me to say? I may not be able to stop you from going through with this, but it’s wrong and I can’t believe you’re even considering it.” He was almost shaking, he couldn’t- How could she even-

“Okay, goddamnit, _fine_!” 

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll figure something out.” She started flicking through screens on her Pip-Boy.

“What do you mean?” he asked again.

“I don’t know! That’s the fucking _point_!” She disappeared in a flash of blue light before he could respond.

 

Danse stared at the spot where she had just been standing. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Whatever you’ve gone off to do, please be careful. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

* * *

She came back less than an hour later. There was another blue flash, and then she appeared in the middle of the courtyard and immediately collapsed on the ground. 

One of the Minutemen yelled “She’s injured!” Danse rushed toward her. 

The first thing he noticed was that she was wearing a light blue lab coat that had been torn in several places. She’d mentioned that she wore one while she was inside the Institute, to encourage them to trust her and take her more seriously. After she finished a mission from them she would always dismiss her Courser companion, relay back somewhere within walking distance of the Castle but out of sight, change clothes, and then walk back. 

The second thing he noticed was the severe laser burn on the back of her right shoulder. “This needs medical attention. May I?“ he gestured to her.

Stephanie nodded, breathing hard. (Third, she was out of breath, almost like she’d been running.) She didn’t say anything when he lifted her and carried her to the nearest bed. He was vaguely aware of being followed by at least two of the Minutemen.

She sat up on the bed but her eyes were squeezed shut. “Your sleeve needs to be cut off,” he said to Stephanie. He was sure she’d noticed that the fabric had melted onto her skin, but it felt disrespectful to start cutting it without warning her first. He glanced around. “Does anyone have scissors, or a knife?”

“Excuse me, Monsieur Danse.” Curie was standing behind him, holding a medical kit and a pair of scissors.

Danse got out of her way as quickly as he could. He went around to the other side of the bed and crouched down to Stephanie’s level. “What happened?” he asked.

“I did it,” she said weakly, without opening her eyes. 

“ _What?_ ”

“I did it,” she said again.

Curie exposed the wound and one of the Minutemen gawkers gasped. 

“Damn, boss. They got you good,” Deacon said from a corner that had been empty a moment ago.

“You’re all acting like I’ve never been shot before. I just need a stimpak or two and a nap and I’ll be fine.”

Curie muttered something under her breath as she injected a stimpak into Stephanie’s arm. It actually took a total of three stimpaks for her skin to knit back together into something fragile-looking but solid. Curie dressed the newly-formed skin and handed her a can of water. “You are dehydrated. Please drink this and try to get some rest. How are you feeling?”

Stephanie opened her eyes to peer at her. “I’ve been worse.”

“How are you feeling _now_?” she insisted.

Stephanie looked down at the floor. “Weak.”

“That is to be expected. Please rest. I hope you will still be here in a few hours so that I can check on your wound.”

Stephanie chuckled. “You know me too well, apparently.”

Several people offered Stephanie Med-X and at least two of them tried to give her whiskey, but Curie shooed away everybody except for Danse, who she turned to with a surprisingly stern look on her face. “She needs water and sleep.”

“Understood.” 

Curie left and they were finally alone together. Stephanie set the water down and fumbled around with her lab coat until she exposed a zipper hidden beneath a small flap that Danse hadn’t even noticed. She unzipped the coat and tried to shrug out of it. “Could you help me? I don’t want to move my shoulder too much yet.” 

He helped her gently slide the coat off of her body. There were several more bruises and burn marks on her arms and the top of her back that was visible above her undershirt, but they were starting to fade as the medicine from the stimpaks spread throughout the rest of her body. “How many times were you hit?”

“A lot,” she admitted. “That was the only bad one, though. I didn’t see who did it but they took out my shooting arm even though I was invisible. Must’ve been a Courser.” She paused to drink some of the water.

“What _happened_?” he asked again, feeling slightly ridiculous.

“I assassinated the Acting Director of the Institute’s Synth Retention Bureau. I shot him in the head in front of a room full of people and then I activated a Stealth Boy and got the fuck out as quickly as I could.” She took a sip of water. “ _Everybody_ was shooting at me. All of the synths, the scientists who were my friends yesterday- it turns out that they all carry weapons. I didn’t want to kill anybody else so I just ran as fast as I could. My son got on the speaker system and gave me this very condescending lecture about how unhappy he was and how he was _allowing_ me to leave but I am now an enemy of the Institute and they’ll try to kill me on sight. Sounded exactly like his father, actually.”

“That’s not quite what I meant when I encouraged you to stop working for the Institute.”

She gave him a withering look. After a minute or two she said, “I need to let the Railroad know that I’ve failed them.” 

“You need to rest first.”

She rolled her eyes at him but she didn’t argue. He let her drink some more water before he spoke up again. “Why did you do this?”

Stephanie looked him in the eyes. Her expression was unreadable. “You’re important to me and the Brotherhood of Steel is important to you, so I made myself useless to the two organizations that oppose it. Besides, the leadership crisis in the SRB means that it’s going to be harder for them to drag you in and wipe your memory.” Danse had no idea how to respond to that, so he let her finish the water in silence. 

He helped her take her boots off before she lay down on the bed. Stephanie insisted that she only needed one hour of sleep to heal, but Danse argued that Curie had said she needed plenty of rest. After some negotiation, they agreed that she would set the alarm on her Pip-Boy for six hours from now. 

Danse didn’t even try to sleep. He sat next to the bed and listened to her breathing while he tried to understand what she had just done.

 

After Stephanie woke up, she waited long enough to eat something and put on her armor (Curie managed to examine her shoulder while she was eating and declared that it had healed well), but she was insistent that she had to report to the Railroad as soon as possible.

Danse argued that he should go with her. “You said yourself that you failed them. I’m worried about your safety.”

“You want to protect me from the Railroad?” She sounded amused by the prospect, but she eventually agreed that he could come with her but not go inside their secret headquarters. “I’m already in enough trouble with them. I don’t want to make it worse by bringing in unauthorized people.”

 

She led him toward the North End area. Stephanie looked at him expectantly and she seemed surprised by whatever she saw. “You don’t know where we’re going? I could’ve sworn you guys knew about this.” 

“I, personally, didn’t know. I believe that the Brotherhood is aware.”

“Hmm. They actually had a much larger, fancier headquarters with better defenses back before I woke up, but the Institute went through and slaughtered everyone.” Danse was tempted to question her about this, but their conversation was cut short when Stephanie spotted a group of Gunners up ahead and asked Danse to boost her up so that she could climb onto a nearby roof and get a better shot at them. 

 

They arrived at a very old-looking church. He followed her down a stairway into a narrow crypt that wound around corners and seemed to go on forever. He felt very large and very loud in the quiet stillness, surrounded by death and endless dust. 

“Look, what’s going on?” she asked abruptly.

“What do you mean?”

“I did what you wanted me to do and you’re still being weird. I’m not expecting a ‘thank you’ or anything, but would it kill you to relax around me?”

“You said that I’m important to you. There are a lot of people who are important to you, but you haven’t made yourself an enemy of the Institute for anyone else. There has to be more to it.”

She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t exactly been subtle but if you need me to spell it out, I’m in love with you.”

_What._

“ _How?_ ”

“You know, you could’ve just said ‘Thank you.’ Or ‘I’m flattered, but no thanks.’” 

“That’s not what I meant, it’s just- I’m not even human.”

“You really think that’s something I care about? Have you even listened to anything I’ve said, ever?”

He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t dare to believe it.

“As far as I can tell, you feel similarly about me. Is that right?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t the sincere confession he’d planned to make back when he thought that any of this was an option for him, but it was the truth.

“That’s good to hear, at least. Sorry that I let the awkward sexual tension go on for so long. I just spent a long time feeling really disgusted with myself for being attracted to you- I know that makes me sound like an asshole, sorry-“

“No, it makes perfect sense. You have nothing to apologize for.” It still hurt, but he’d already mourned the life that he couldn’t have and had largely accepted his current existence.

“It’s not what you think. I’ve been avoiding saying anything to you about this because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to start a relationship with you or anything, and I was worried that it would just make things even more awkward.”

“I understand, really. We don’t need to talk about this again.”

“Seriously?” She groaned. “Can you hold off on the self-loathing bullshit for, like, five minutes?” When he didn’t respond, she continued, “It took the goddamn apocalypse to get me to leave my husband, and then I immediately go and fall for another career soldier because I’m some kind of idiot with no sense of self-preservation. The Brotherhood thing was just supposed to be a short op but I kept dragging it out because I liked making you happy, and I hated myself more and more because I couldn’t get over you and now here we are,” she gestured to the tunnels around them. “The worst part is that I still don’t know what to do because I’m too fucking scared. What if we get together but it turns out that you’re evil and I’m not strong enough to leave you, either? I don’t think the world could survive another nuclear war.” She sighed. “Sorry, I know this isn’t fair to you. You can’t really reassure me that you aren’t evil, because that’s exactly what an evil person would say.”

_Oh._

“Regardless of what you decide to do about- about _us_ , I will try to be a good person, to the best of my ability. That’s all I can promise. I should also point out that you’re hardly weak, and you’ve grown even stronger in the time that I’ve known you. I trust your ability to do whatever is needed, should I turn evil.”

“Thanks.” She smiled weakly. “And _us_ , right, that’s the question, isn’t it? It started out as just harmless flirting because there was never any chance that anything could happen, but then you got kicked out of the Brotherhood but there was still no chance that you’d be interested in me once you found out about everything I was doing. Turns out you proved me wrong there, too. Now the only thing holding me back is my own insecurity. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been thinking about it, and lately I’ve been thinking that maybe I want to try. What about you?”

“I honestly never expected that we would be having this conversation, but I feel closer to you than I ever have with anyone else and I would be honored to be with you, in whatever way you’ll have me. And I love you too.” It occurred to him that _I’m in love with you_ might not mean exactly the same thing as _I love you._ “I love you,” he corrected. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” He suddenly wanted to kiss her more than he’d wanted anything else, ever.

Before he could react, she stepped up on the boots of his armor, bracing herself by holding onto the rim at his neck. There was a scraping sound as her chest plate moved against his torso. The kiss itself was soft, dry, and over quickly. When Stephanie stepped down, she was grinning at him. 

“That was nice,” he said.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t sure how long they just stood there, watching each other and smiling, but it was longer than appropriate. Stephanie was the one to break the silence. “I do need to-“ she gestured down the corridor. 

“Right. Lead the way.”

She stopped him when they stood in front of an old, very thick door. “Feel free to come rescue me if you hear gunshots,” she said before going inside.

 

Danse waited for her outside in the corridor for what felt like forever. When she finally emerged, she didn’t look hurt. They started walking back out the way they came in. “How did it go?” 

She looked guilty. “They assumed that I did everything I could and my cover was blown in spite of my best efforts, and I didn’t correct them. The bright side is that I now have the easiest assignment I’ve been given since I woke up.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m supposed to locate Preston Garvey.”

“What does the Railroad want with him?”

“Since I can’t infiltrate the Institute from the inside anymore, I have to break back in by force and I need an army for that. The Minutemen are probably my best option.”

“The Minutemen are a loosely-organized network of farmers armed with mediocre pipe rifles. That’s hardly an army.”

She cringed. “I know, but I don’t really have a lot of choices right now.”

 

Garvey was patrolling the Castle, almost exactly where Danse had last seen him. The light from his laser musket made him especially easy to find. “What can I do for you, General?” he asked.

“Long story short, I need the Minutemen to help me break into the Institute and destroy it.”

Garvey blinked a few times and looked over at Danse for help. Finally, he said “I didn’t know you were so interested in the Institute.”

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“Well, Sturges is probably the one to talk to about that, but he’s back in Sanctuary.”

“Can we radio him?”

“Afraid not. We never set up a radio transmitter there, but this is a good chance to do that!”

“…All right.” Garvey didn’t seem to notice the pause, but it got Danse’s attention like a blaring alarm. He wondered what was wrong.

“Danse, will you come to Sanctuary with me?”

“Of course.” 

 

An hour into their journey, Danse still had no idea what Sanctuary was, other than the fact that it was evidently located west of the Castle. Stephanie was being uncharacteristically quiet and she didn’t respond to any of his attempts to make conversation. He was almost entirely sure that he hadn’t imagined the recent mutual declarations of love. Weren’t people who loved each other supposed to communicate with each other? Every time he thought he knew all of her secrets, more of them seemed to emerge. 

The tension was eventually broken by another attack from a Brotherhood patrol, of all things. When the smoke cleared, Stephanie was cursing at nothing in particular but at least she was _talking_.

“I guess I’ll have to take this General of the Minutemen thing seriously now,” she said once she’d calmed down

“Someone has to.”

She laughed out loud. “That was actually funny! I’m impressed. Seriously though, I can’t believe it took me this long to think of it, but you’re a recently-unemployed soldier and I just happen to have an army that badly needs recruits, especially ones who know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“The Minutemen aren’t an army, they’re-“

“Farmers with shitty pipe rifles, yes, we’ve established that-“

“Does that mean that the Minutemen’s primary purpose now is to act as a militia, or are they more of a humanitarian organization?”

“…Both?”

“Is there some kind of command structure? You’re ostensibly in charge, but that only seems to mean that you do all of the grunt work. How much actual authority do you have? Is there even a chain of command, and where do the settlements fit into it? Is there a system for transmitting information? The radio system is understaffed and disorganized and communication will fall apart completely if the Minutemen grow any larger. I don’t even want to think about the mess that the supply lines are-“ Once he’d gotten started, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from listing all the things that had been bothering him lately. He only paused when he noticed that Stephanie was smiling at him.

“See? This is exactly why we need someone with actual military leadership experience if we want the Minutemen to succeed this time.” She looked at him, and he recognized the same expression and tone of voice that she’d used when she convinced him to stay alive. “This is your chance to rebuild the Minutemen from the ground up and decide what direction it will go in. I can’t overstate how much we need you, because _we really fucking need you_ , but haven’t you wanted to be a soldier again? To be part of something good and important? Please think about it, at least.”

“No need, you’ve convinced me.” He had to admit that she made good points, and he hadn’t exactly decided on any other plans for his life. Besides, he’d already been spending most of his time helping out at the Castle.

“There is one thing that we need to discuss.” She stopped walking and stared at him. “I can’t stop you from being a racist bag of dicks on your own time, but the official position of the Minutemen is that the Commonwealth belongs to everyone. I won’t tolerate bigoted talk or behavior from anyone under my command. Is that clear?”

“Understood, General.”

“Excellent.” She grinned and leaned into him with a kind of awkward side-hug that he almost thought he could feel through his armor. 

 

Stephanie seemed to be in better spirits, until she suddenly wasn’t anymore. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“We’re almost there. I need a minute.”

“Take as much time as you need.”

She held onto his hand (or rather, the hand on his armor) and they stood there for a moment. He could hear her breathing. “I used to live here, before the war.” She pointed at the woods to the north. “The Vault is somewhere over there and he’s still frozen in there. I know it’s stupid to still be afraid of him it feels like he’s haunting this whole area.”

“It’s hardly stupid. I hope you know that I’m here for you, no matter what happens.”

“Thanks.” She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “Let’s do this.”

 

Sanctuary didn’t look particularly different from any other pre-war ruin. There were many destroyed houses, with a few that were slightly less destroyed. They had to step over downed trees as they made their way through the buildings to a small clearing that looked occupied. Danse noticed several rows of vegetables and a few turrets that were only barely held together.

“Oh, they fixed the garden! I’m glad.” At Danse’s curious look, she explained “I was here for a bit after I left the Vault, before I went to Diamond City and never looked back. I didn’t know how to plant anything until Deacon took pity on me and taught me what to do. It’s embarrassing to think how badly I screwed it up here.”

She was interrupted by a ghoul wearing a suit, who approached them. “You’re here!” he said.

“Yep, I sure am!” 

“We’re in Sanctuary together! This is wonderful!”

“Isn’t it?” Her smile looked fake to Danse, but the ghoul didn’t seem to notice. When he was gone, Stephanie pointed to a blue house. “That’s where I lived,” she said in a choked voice.

He thought about trying to touch her in a comforting way, but he wasn’t sure if she would welcome it while other people were present. He decided to smile at her instead and she smiled back at him.

“Miss Stephanie!” A voice was calling from the direction of the blue house.

Stephanie flinched. She hurried Danse away toward another one of the houses. “That was our Mister Handy, from before the war,” she explained. “Nate insisted on getting him to help with the baby because he said that I sleep too much and I couldn’t handle the responsibility. Codsworth offered to come with me but I couldn’t-“ she trailed off.

She led Danse around a pile of debris, toward a man who was wearing overalls. Danse listened while she explained her plans for the Institute to the man. He was sure that he only noticed how tense she seemed because he knew her as well as he did, but it still was concerning that she was being unsubtle enough for him to notice at all. She was breathing deliberately, as if it was difficult for her. Danse heard Stephanie ask the man to go to the Castle so that he could work directly with the Minutemen there, and he agreed. She ended the conversation by handing him something and thanking him. 

 

Danse noticed that she had started walking south, away from Sanctuary. “I was hoping that we could spend the night in Diamond City, if that’s all right with you?”

“That’s fine. How are you feeling?”

She groaned in response. 

After a couple of minutes, she spoke up again, “Thank you for being so patient with my and all my bullshit.”

“There’s no need to thank me, but I appreciate it all the same.”

“So I’ve decided that I want to. Have sex with you and/or date you. Do people still call it dating? I want to do that. If you’re amenable to either of those things? No hard feelings if you aren’t.”

She’d said _I want to have sex with you_ and he suddenly was finding it very difficult to think about anything else but she was waiting for an answer and her face had flipped from anxious to blank and that was a very bad sign-

“Yes, to all of it. I would be more than happy to.”

Her face suddenly broke out into something that looked nervous and happy at the same time. “All right then. That’s great!” She leaned against him, their armor clanging together. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that if you want X6 as a companion and you also want to finish the game with the Minutemen without becoming an enemy of either the Railroad or the Brotherhood, you have to attack a named Institute member. Also, fuck Justin Ayo.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly sex, so feel free to skip this chapter and/or skip directly to this chapter at your discretion.
> 
> For lack of any better ideas, the recommended listening song is [Every Other Freckle by Alt-J](https://youtu.be/QUZBFLPRUUM).

Stephanie started rambling while they were walking to Diamond City. “I need to take my mind off of everything. Do you want to hear about how I pickpocketed Proctor Ingram?”

“I’d really rather not.”

“What about this family I met who were all immortal?”

“Uh… all right.”

She went on to tell a very long and ridiculous story about a series of jobs she claimed to have done for a family that had been alive since before the war, one of whom had magic abilities that he’d received from some kind of alien hat. It wasn’t her best story, but it passed the time well enough and she seemed to be in a better mood by the time they reached the city gates.

She let them into the apartment and locked the door behind them. Danse stepped out of his Power Armor, then immediately started worrying that it was presumptuous for him to do so. It would be even more obvious for him to get back in it so he stood there awkwardly, trying not to look awkward or small and vulnerable or any of the other things that he felt.

To his relief, Stephanie was taking off her own armor. She stacked it neatly on her armor bench. She took her boots off and he bent down to do the same. “So...” she said, looking at Danse.

He stepped forward until he was right in front of her. She looked up at him, eyebrows raised, but she didn’t say anything or back away. Danse could feel his heart pounding. He gently brushed his hand against her cheek. She leaned into it and the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. Very slowly, so that she could stop him at any time, he brought his face down to hers. Their noses brushed against each other first, then their lips, and then his mouth was positioned against hers so that they were kissing again.

Stephanie responded enthusiastically, standing on her tiptoes and pressing as much of her body against his as she could. He cupped her cheek and she held on to his waist. He felt her mouth open and he opened his in return. The sensation made him gasp. It was dizzying, almost intoxicating. 

After what was at least a few minutes of deep, open-mouthed, increasingly frantic kissing, Stephanie pulled back. “Do you want to move to the couch?” She gestured toward the living room. “It might be more comfortable.” 

He didn’t particularly want to stop kissing her in the doorway, but his neck _was_ bent at an awkward angle. “Good thinking.”

Danse followed her into the living room. He was tempted to pull her back for more kissing, but he was _disciplined_ , damn it.

“After you,” she said, looking at the couch. Danse sat down and she climbed onto his lap, with her knees on either side of his hips.

She hesitated. “Is this all right?”

She felt so warm and solid, comforting and thrilling at the same time. Her groin was inches away from his. “Very much so.”

“Good.” With a smile, she leaned forward to kiss him again. The kisses were soft and sweet at first. She positioned herself over him and gently touched his face while he kept his own hands on the couch beside him, unsure what the boundaries were here. 

He wasn’t sure when it became heated, exactly, or even what happened, but before he knew it she was grabbing fistfuls of his hair and shoving her tongue in his mouth while both of his hands were holding her ass tightly. She ground down onto him and he thrust up against her without any conscious thought. Stephanie moaned into his mouth and then pulled back, embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ve just been wanting to do this for a really long time.” 

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He realized that he was breathing hard. She was still sitting directly on top of him. She bit her lip and he knew that she could feel his cock twitch in response.

“Well, in that case…” She surged forward again to kiss him again, only this time she was deliberately rocking back and forth on top of his dick. Danse held onto her and pulled her down in a desperate attempt to get more friction. His mind was spinning and the only thing he could think about was touching as much of her as possible. He ran a hand under the hem of her shirt and felt the bare skin of her back. Had her skin always been so warm? “Mmnn,” she sighed. Encouraged, Danse tried to lift her shirt up. She realized what he was doing and took off her Pip-Boy so that she could pull her shirt the rest of the way up and over her head. Her undershirt went next (she didn’t normally wear a bra under her armor- was it strange that he knew that?) and then her bare breasts were right in front of his face. 

Watching her face carefully to gauge her reactions, Danse started to touch her breasts. He felt the shape of them- about a handful each, and wonderfully soft. She ground down on him when his fingers flicked across her nipples. He kissed her some more, with one hand on her breast and the other reaching down the back of her pants. Stephanie stood up so that she could get undressed the rest of the way.

He’d seen her naked before but he had never been able to just look at her like this, to try to memorize everything that he could see- her soft, freckled body marred by scars that she’d never gotten around to healing and the ever-present cluster of recoil bruises on the front of her shoulder. He wanted badly to touch her, and he was about to do so when she spoke up. “Come on, you need to get your clothes off too. It’s not fair otherwise.” She watched him shamelessly and gave an approving nod and an “Oh, _very_ nice” when his shirt came off. He knew that she was trying to compliment him, but talking about his body made him self-conscious and uncomfortable. It wasn’t anything that he could be proud of.

As he was in the middle of taking his pants off, Danse was suddenly struck with a horrible thought. He had no idea whether or not he’d ever had sex. He definitely had memories of sex—vivid memories that he’d jerked off to more than he wanted to admit—but there was no way to know if any of them were actually real. 

_Could_ he even have sex? There was nothing to suggest that he wouldn’t be capable of it, but not even the Institute would be depraved enough to create machines that had the ability to engage in sexual activities with humans. 

(...Right?)

Danse realized that he should have thought this through before he was completely naked. Stephanie was starting to look worried. Well, there was only one way to find out for sure, wasn’t there? For her sake, he could damn well try.

She straddled his lap again, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how her cunt was _right there_ , without even clothing in between them. They started kissing again and Danse dragged a hand along her thigh until he was between her legs. Stephanie moaned appreciatively at the contact. She was slick, already, and so _warm_. It had been a very long time, if he’d ever done this before, but his hand seemed to remember what it was doing and it wasn’t long before she was sighing against his mouth and digging her fingernails into his back. 

“Can I taste you?” he asked.

“You’re sure you want to?” He could feel her body tense slightly. Her face instantly went blank.

“Yes, if you are.”

“All right.” 

She took his place on the couch, and he sat on the floor in between her legs. He started to kiss her thighs, which seemed to make her more comfortable, and worked his way up to her cunt. The taste was instantly familiar. She was so soft beneath his mouth. It didn’t take long before her hands were tangled in his hair again and she was breathing hard. Danse felt relief when he realized that he COULD do this. He experimented with different sensations, paying attention to what made her thighs tense or her hands push his face toward her.

It wasn’t long before he could feel the tension throughout her whole body. “Fuck, if you keep doing that I’m going to come,” she said, her voice strained. Danse tried to go faster. “Yeah, like that,” she gasped.

She’d been fairly quiet up until this point, but Danse started to hear incoherent, needy-sounding moaning noises that got louder until she smashed his face into her and shuddered against him. He licked her through it until she relaxed and nudged him away.

“Thank you,” she said as soon as he met her eyes. She leaned down to kiss him gently before resting her head on his shoulder. “Fuck, I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s not true.”

She snorted but she didn’t move her head for a while. She leaned back, stretching. “All right, your turn.”

“What?” He honestly hadn’t been expecting anything else. This was already more than he thought he could have.

“Do you want to?” She was staring pointedly at his cock, which was stupidly hard and had been for a while. “Come on,” she stood up and patted the spot on the couch where she’d been sitting.

Danse sat down. He thought about protesting more but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She took his place on the floor. He could almost feel her breath on his skin but she wasn’t moving, just smirking up at him. 

She licked him from the base to the tip of his cock. “Unnh.” She’d barely touched him but it sent a thrill throughout his body. Without breaking eye contact, she lowered her face again to take the head of his cock into her mouth and suck on it gently. The sight of it was overwhelming. Danse didn’t think it was possible, but he felt himself grow even harder. She alternated between teasing him with little licks, sucking, and pressing against him with her tongue. His eyes squeezed shut. Danse thought that he should maybe be talking to her but he didn’t think that he could speak coherently right now. He glanced at her and noticed that she was watching him and her eyes looked like she was smiling. 

One of her hands crept up his thigh, until he realized that she was moving toward his ass. He spread his legs wider and moved his hips forward automatically to give her better access. Stephanie raised her eyebrows at him and he nodded. She rubbed the outside of his asshole with her finger. “Oh,” he said, even though it sounded more like a gasp. His head fell back against the couch. 

“You really like that, don’t you?” Stephanie had replaced her mouth with her other hand, which was busy stroking him, and _fuck_ , she was good with her hands. He’d known that almost since he met her—her hands were strong, quick, always steady—but he’d never imagined it would be like this-

He nodded weakly. 

She pushed her finger into him as far as it could go in dry, which felt like it was just the tip. “It’s too bad that I used up the last of my oil earlier.” He really hoped that he wasn’t expected to respond to any of this. “It’d be fun to suck you off with my fingers in your ass.”

Danse made an embarrassing strangled-sounding noise as he came. The first spurt went across her face, then she put her mouth back on him and swallowed the rest. 

“Sorry,” he said gruffly as soon as he could speak.

“No problem at all.” She went to wipe off her face and wash her hands. She didn’t seem to be put off by the taste, so either it tasted like it was supposed to or she was too polite to react. Suddenly, she started laughing.

“What?”

“Not you, just-“ she laughed again. “Anal penetration buddies.” Danse couldn’t help chuckling in response.

Still naked, she walked over to a cooler in the kitchen and opened it. “Want one?” She held up a Nuka-Cherry.

“Sure.” 

Stephanie brought two bottles over and sat down on the couch next to him. “Please don’t tell anyone that I drink sugary irradiated crap like this.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

She leaned against his shoulder. “See, this is why I like you.”

Some time later, she glanced at the time on her Pip-Boy. “Oh, Percy’s working! I’ll be right back.” She dressed quickly and hurried out the door. 

Stephanie had returned by the time Danse had gotten his clothes on. “I got some oil!” she said, showing him her purchases, “and beer and snack cakes!”

She was obviously still shaken from the visit to Sanctuary, even though she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and they were both tired, so they went to bed soon after that. She whispered “I love you” into his shoulder shortly before she fell asleep. None of this seemed real, which wasn’t unusual lately, but for the first time he desperately hoped that it was.

 

When Danse woke up, she was still asleep and muttering something incomprehensible about a mysterious stranger. He walked outside as quietly as possible and approached the Protectron in the market.

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”

“Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”

“I owe you an apology for accusing you of being a Chinese spy. I have been informed that this is both offensive and geographically inaccurate.”

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”

“I, too, have been unfairly accused of infiltration and I would not wish it on anyone.”

“Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”

“Uh… yes. I’ll have two bowls.” Danse paid for the noodles and left some extra caps as a tip.

When he returned, it looked like Stephanie had just woken up. “Oh, hey, there you are! Sorry I slept so long. Ooh, you got breakfast?”

She walked across the room to kiss him. 

“How are you doing?” he asked as they sat down.

“Better.”

They ate their noodles in silence for a few minutes before Stephanie spoke. “Huh, I must really be drained from yesterday. Tastes better than usual.”

“Hmm.”

 

It wasn’t long before they found themselves back in bed again, kissing and groping each other. Stephanie rolled onto her back and pulled him on top of her. “You’re so big and strong,” she murmured into his neck. “I’ve always thought it would be fun to be held down and fucked really hard by you. If you’d be into that.”

He had to pull back and look at her. Her eyebrows were raised, but it didn’t look like she was joking. “I- yes. I would be.”

 

“Hell yeah,” she said softly, pushing her hips up against his. 

They undressed, more quickly this time.

She opened her legs so that he could settle between them. He watched her laid out beneath him, flushed and breathing hard. Danse could feel that she was slick already. 

“You can just go ahead and fuck me, you know.” It was impressive how she managed to sound blunt and sexy at the same time and, well, when she put it like that-

He lined himself up and started to push into her. “Wait, hold on. Don’t pull out, just give me a minute.”

“Are you all right?” Danse forced himself not to move. She somehow felt even hotter inside than she had against his hand last night.

“Yeah. Just hold still, please.” Her face scrunched up in discomfort. “Turns out that you get really tight when you haven’t been laid in over 200 years. Who knew?” He felt her squeeze around him and he gasped involuntarily. “Okay, I’m good now.” She started moving back and forth on his dick and he thrust forward into her.

Danse took her hands in his and held them down on the bed, above her head. He lowered his body so that his chest was flush with hers and he was pinning her down. He started thrusting harder. He bit the side of her neck, which she seemed to enjoy. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

“Unh- yeah.” She was moving in rhythm with him but she didn’t seem to be trying to throw him off of her.

“It sounds like you’ve spent time thinking about it.”

“Pretty much. I mean, the first thought when I met you was ‘Holy shit, those eyebrows are huge!’ but I’ve been fantasizing about getting fucked by you since about the first month or so.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at that. His voice sounded lower than usual. “So insubordinate.”

“Yep. I’m the worst.”

“No you aren’t.” He paused to kiss her cheek and he started moving again but it was slower, more deliberate. “You’re amazing.”

She was silent but he felt her body shudder.

Danse let go of her hands to move back up onto his knees. He lifted her legs so that they were resting against his shoulders, and bent down again. Stephanie was nearly folded in half. She smiled at him gratefully. 

He resumed pounding into her. She grabbed at him, overwhelmed. Soon, she was making noises that almost sounded like she was sobbing. 

“Could you…?” she looked at him. 

“Of course.” Danse lowered one of her legs and sat back up so that he was perpendicular to her. He held her hand with one of his, while the other one rubbed across her clit. He started thrusting again and it didn’t take long before her eyes squeezed shut and she moaned as she clenched around him. 

Danse slowed his movements. He rubbed her hip while he waited for her to open her eyes. “Go on,” she finally said, “I want you to come inside me.” 

That honestly turned him on more than he’d expected it to. He released her leg and fell forward again so that his chest was resting against hers. She held tightly to him and whispered in his ear and he fucked her until he felt himself tensing and then spilling deep inside her. 

“Ad victoriam,” she said seriously. He found himself laughing so hard that he had to roll to the side so that he didn’t crush her. 

They washed themselves with rags and a basin of clean water. Stephanie spent the entire time complaining that people had to pay for water in Diamond City because they lived in apartments, when the rest of the Commonwealth could just build water pumps outside their homes with cheap, readily-available materials. She had enough money, she said, that wasn’t the issue- it was the _principle_ of the thing.

They spent the morning taking turns using Stephanie’s workbench to repair their armor. Stephanie surprised him with kisses whenever he wasn’t holding a blowtorch.

When they’d finished with their armor, she slicked her fingers with oil and twisted them around inside of Danse until he was whimpering helplessly and clutching at her sheets while he leaked all over his stomach. Once he'd recovered enough to think coherently, he made her come three times to thank her.

Danse made lunch for them. Stephanie gave him free rein of her book collection and they sat on her couch, reading different books in comfortable silence, with her feet resting in his lap. He discovered new freckles on interesting parts of her body.

She caught him glancing at her weapons bench, a few too many times to be accidental. “Are you working up the nerve to ask if you can bend me over that?”

“...Yes.” He could feel that his face was bright red.

She grinned in response. “All right, let’s do it.” She walked over to the other side of the room. It wasn’t blatantly seductive, but there was a confidence to her movement that was captivating. Without turning to look at him, she lowered her pants and underwear down to her ankles and bent over, bracing her arms against the bench.

By the time Danse reached her, his cock was throbbing in his pants. She was already open and wet from, well, everything they’d done today and he slid into her easily. They both moaned at the sensation.

Danse looked down and watched himself go in and out of her. He thought about all the times when he’d gotten distracted by her hands or the silhouette of her body when she was working on her weapons and he came blindingly hard, after maybe a minute if he was being generous. 

She stood up so that her back was to his chest. He held her against him. He still couldn’t get over how warm she was. “That was…”

“Exhilarating?” she finished. 

“That’s one way to describe it.”

He got her off again, partially to thank her again but mostly because she’d gotten turned on by him fucking her (however briefly) and he enjoyed watching her in pleasure. 

Stephanie cooked dinner for them and complained that it took twice as long as it normally would have because he wouldn’t stop kissing her. They fell asleep naked, with her sprawled out halfway on top of him.

 

When he woke up, he saw that she was sitting on the floor, cleaning her rifle in between bites of snack cake. Her hair was down and she was wearing a flannel shirt and underwear. He thought that it was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her. 

“Hey,” she said, “Did you sleep well?”

“I did,” he said. _Please let this be real_ , he thought.

 

Later in the day, while she was on top and riding him and he was pinching her nipples, her Pip-Boy started making a strange beeping noise that Danse had never heard before.

“Oh shit, hold on-” Stephanie climbed off of him and rushed to turn her Pip-Boy to the radio function. He watched her flick the dial to Radio Freedom.

“ _...General, if you can hear this, you’re needed at the Castle as soon as possible. Repeat:…_ ”

By the time the message finished playing, Stephanie was already dashing around the room and looking for clean socks, and Danse was close behind her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: [This Is Why We Fight by The Decemberists](https://youtu.be/_SysfMZVUoc).
> 
> Bonus songs in honor of the Institute: [Afraid by The Neighbourhood](https://youtu.be/laEB5OgGjaI) and [Synthesize Me by Diorama](https://youtu.be/aDGSE0VPXqE).
> 
> Yet another bonus song, because it reminds me of Stephanie: [Master Pretender by First Aid Kit](https://youtu.be/_iGyu61sUTE).

They rushed back to the Castle as quickly as they could. 

Almost immediately after they arrived, Ronnie Shaw informed them that the Institute was getting ready to attack and that they’d probably barely made it in time. 

Danse tried to give Stephanie a look that said _Don’t blame yourself_ but she didn’t seem any less tense. 

Stephanie unlocked her workshop and started going through her stockpile of weapons. Danse thought about all the times that he’d watched her work and how he used to wonder what she’d been planning on doing with so many guns. They had just enough time to distribute weapons and ammunition among the Minutemen and double-check the turrets before the first wave hit. 

An army of skeletal-looking synths appeared outside the Castle. They tried to storm both the front and back entrances, but most of them were quickly destroyed by the turrets. The few that managed to make it inside were taken down easily by the Minutemen. 

When the dust cleared, the Minutemen were glancing around at each other, unsure. Danse remembered how he felt during his first major battle. “Be on guard,” he called out. “It’s not over yet.” 

Sure enough, several Coursers appeared and made their way toward the gates. One of them immediately went for Stephanie, seemingly unfazed by the turrets. It targeted her no matter where she went or what she did. Danse could see that she was trying to hit it with her rifle, but she wasn’t able to fire quickly enough and it was gaining on her. 

He couldn’t get a clear shot at the Courser. He rushed toward it, firing wildly in its general direction. The Courser aimed its weapon at her head, and Danse knew that Stephanie knew she had no hope of shooting it before it shot her. Instead, she fumbled with something at her belt and then disappeared. Danse could see the wall behind where she had just been standing. He took advantage of the Courser’s moment of surprise to fire several rounds into its chest. It fell to the ground. 

He couldn’t see Stephanie anywhere. Coursers started appearing on the platform above the radio transmitter and dropping down into the courtyard, where they were easily able to attack the Minutemen and storm the inside of the Castle. Stephanie’s turrets lining the walls were suddenly useless. 

The fight quickly became brutal and chaotic. The Minutemen outnumbered the Coursers and most of them had been armed with decent weapons, but only a few of them had anything resembling training or experience and they were no match for literal killing machines.

Danse lost count of the number of Minutemen who died within the first few minutes. 

 

They finally managed to defeat the Coursers, but Stephanie was still nowhere to be found. The mood among the remaining Minutemen ranged from terrified to hopeless. Garvey was trying to keep them motivated but even he looked discouraged. 

Danse took off his helmet and yelled “Can everyone hear me?” He walked into the middle of an open area in the courtyard. Several of the Minutemen moved closer to him. “There will be more of them any minute now.” He looked around at the crowd that was forming. “If you have a melee weapon or you know that you can withstand the battle, stay down here. Otherwise, take position around the walls. “You,” he gestured to several of the Minutemen, “watch the front entrance. You there, watch the back. The rest of you, focus on this platform and shoot anything that appears on it. If you’re injured or you aren’t confident in your abilities, stay in cover up on the wall and shoot only when you can do so safely. _Don’t be reckless_. If a Courser targets you and you can’t escape, try to close as much of the distance as possible and attack it at a close range. Remember that they can heal themselves but they aren’t invincible.”

Someone shouted that more were coming and he put his helmet back on. There were still no signs of Stephanie, but a group of synths was closing in on him and he didn’t have any choice but to trust that she could take care of herself.

The fight this time was no less difficult, but it was more controlled. Danse shouted instructions at the Minutemen whenever he could. Slowly but surely, they held back the army of synths. 

Danse noticed that several of Stephanie’s friends had joined the fight. He’d expected Hancock to hide from something like this but there he was, terrifying and powerful with a shotgun, and probably a combination of chems that Danse didn’t want to think about. Cait was fighting right alongside Danse even though she didn’t have proper armor, or even sleeves (and _without_ chems, from what Stephanie had told him). Danse watched, impressed, as Cait smashed a Courser’s face with a nail-studded baseball bat. Garvey was formidable in his own right, making synths crumple in the wake of his flamethrower and stepping in to protect others whenever he could.

Danse mentally counted off the waves of synths as they appeared. There couldn’t be much more, he hoped. Finally, after a particularly brutal attack, the silence lasted long enough for the survivors to declare that the Institute had stopped. They’d won.

Stephanie was still nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t anywhere inside the courtyard or on the walls, so he went to check the interior of the Castle. The first several rooms were empty. Danse almost panicked when he started seeing piles of ozone ash on the floor, suddenly hyperaware that each one of them used to be a person and that there wouldn’t be any way to identify who they’d once been. 

“Danse, is that you clanking around out there?” The voice came from around a corner.

“Stephanie! Are you all right?” He ran down the hallway as quickly as he could and came face-to-face with Stephanie, who looked uninjured and was holding the gatling laser. The floor around her was covered with even more ash.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?” She set the gatling laser down and flexed her arms, wincing.

“You did all of this?” Danse gestured at the floor.

“Most of it. Sorry for literally disappearing on you; they’ve been hammering me pretty badly back here and I couldn’t get past them. I used three of your fusion cores but I promise I’ll pay you back.”

He hugged her as best as he could with both of them wearing armor. She turned her head to press the side of her face against his chest. 

They went back outside to survey the damage. Most of the Minutemen who had survived the first few waves were still standing. Danse noticed that Stephanie was checking the bodies of the Coursers. “Doesn’t look like my friend was here,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him since I murdered his boss. I almost feel worse about betraying him than I do about betraying my son.”

Danse noticed that Hancock was checking on an injured Minuteman. 

“I underestimated you,” Danse said. “You’re obviously skilled and you don’t back down from a challenge.”

Hancock’s grin was uncomfortably wide. “Aww, look at that. Almost sounds like you like me."

“Don’t push your luck.”

Before he could say anything else, Ronnie Shaw approached Danse and gave him a curt nod of approval. “I have to say, I don’t know where the General found you but you saved a lot of lives today.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He’d almost forgotten what this felt like.

“You’re so badass,” Stephanie said, nudging him.

It occurred to him that they were soldiers again, but this time they were on the same side.

* * *

They reviewed the plan for the Institute attack with Sturges. Stephanie and Danse would enter through a sewer tunnel and relay everyone else in. They would set an explosive device, relay back out, and detonate it, destroying the Institute. Liberty Prime still seemed like a less-risky plan, but this one could definitely work.

He wondered what the Minutemen thought of Stephanie’s decision to invade the Institute. As far as most of them knew, their General had had a sudden impulse to go to war against the Institute and they were supporting her out of gratitude for everything she’d done for the settlements (and, more recently, in retaliation for the attack against the Castle).

Stephanie pulled him aside after the meeting. “Are you sure that you still want to break into the Institute with me? If they know who you are, they can wipe your memory without even touching you. I don’t see how anyone could recognize you if you keep your helmet on and don’t talk, but you need to be aware of the risks.”

“I’m not letting you do it alone.” 

“All right.” She nodded, then leaned up to kiss him quickly. “Let’s do this.”

 

The journey into the Institute wasn’t exactly glamorous. Danse was protected by his armor but Stephanie had to take an alarming amount of Rad-X as they made their way through the sewers. He didn’t understand how she could handle the smell; even filtered through his helmet, it was nearly unbearable. Finally, Stephanie opened one last door. “Well,” she said, “this is it.”

Danse hadn’t exactly known what he was expecting the Institute to be like, but his first thought was that it was anticlimactic. It just looked like any of the other old office buildings he’d seen around the Commonwealth. Even the realization that this was where he’d been _built_ didn’t provoke any kind of emotional response.

When they reached the newer parts of the Institute, Danse still didn’t feel anything in particular but he was struck with the thought that he could see why Stephanie fit in here. He’d never seen anywhere else that was so _clean_. Almost everything was a stark white color, as if to emphasize how unnaturally sterile it was. He was both fascinated and horrified by the glimpses of advanced technology that he saw. Danse desperately wished that he could’ve spent more time exploring but he knew that everything he was seeing had been used to commit atrocities. It wouldn’t be worth it.

The same pattern repeated itself in almost every room: synths fired at Danse and Stephanie while the scientists cowered behind their desks. Danse didn’t see why they should leave survivors but he followed Stephanie’s lead. As if she guessed what he was thinking, she said “See, they’re still making the synths do the dirty work for them. I worked with these assholes and none of them are innocent, but the Minutemen don’t want to hurt anybody who surrenders and they’re providing the firepower so we have to do it their way.” One of the aforementioned scientists scrambled away from them while Stephanie shot Danse an incredulous look. 

It was odd to think that their mission to save the Commonwealth ultimately came down to shooting a lot of synths. He remembered the first mission that he’d gone on with Stephanie and realized that her goal had probably been to impress him so much that he would try to recruit her and think it was his own idea.

Danse shook his head and tried to focus. It’s not like he was inexperienced in killing synths, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted. 

Several rooms later, they found a scientist who was still standing. She aimed her pistol straight at Stephanie, who held up her hand to stop the Minutemen from firing on the scientist but kept her own weapon ready. “Stephanie,” the woman said, “It’s actually you.”

“Dr. Orman.”

“I told them they had to be wrong when they said that you killed Dr. Ayo; I couldn’t believe it-”

“Set the weapon down and you won’t be harmed.”

“O-okay.” Dr. Orman looked like she was about to cry, but she placed the pistol down on a desk and raised her hands in the air.

“I helped her design that pistol,” Stephanie said to Danse once they were out in the hallway. “They gave me state-of-the-art equipment and anything I needed. I didn’t even have to scrounge through ruins for broken desk fans and half-empty bottles of glue; I just had to write a list and then someone would bring me everything I’d asked for.”

“I’m sorry,” Danse said quietly. 

“It was never an option for me to take the Director position. Nobody would have listened to me and I’d have ended up either complicit or dead.”

“You made the right decision.”

“Yeah. I think so.”

 

Stephanie was told that she would have to use the Director’s terminal to override the lockdown. Danse could almost feel the tension in her body when she agreed to do it. 

The Director himself was lying in bed, looking fragile and exhausted. Danse stood in the doorway while Stephanie spoke quietly with him. Danse didn’t exactly have much experience in being inconspicuous, but he tried to act like some kind of silent, motionless bodyguard and hoped that he would come off as uninteresting. Shaun’s eyes glanced in his direction, but most of his attention seemed to be on Stephanie. Did he realize that his mother was romantically involved with one of the synths that he’d created? 

Danse couldn’t make out most of the words that they were saying but he could tell that Shaun was using exactly the same tone of voice that Stephanie used when she was trying not to show any emotion. 

After they’d finished speaking, Shaun strained to lift his arm but he was barely able to raise it, so Stephanie bent down to embrace him. He whispered something in her ear and she kissed him on his forehead.

She typed something on a terminal for a few minutes. Shaun looked even weaker than before but his eyes never left her. 

 

They fought their way into Advanced Systems and then back to where the rest of the Minutemen were waiting. The Minutemen were accompanied by a child who Danse had never seen before. There was a hurried conversation about the boy, but Stephanie seemed to recognize him and said that he could come with them. 

They were relayed out and Danse found himself standing with Stephanie and Garvey on the roof of the Mass Fusion building. She was handed a detonator. “You do the honors, General.” 

Stephanie glanced at the detonator, and out at the CIT ruins. Danse wondered what was going through her mind right now. He wondered what would happen if she didn’t go through with this.

She took a deep breath, then exhaled. She pressed the button down. The explosion was almost impossibly loud and then there was silence. 

Stephanie threw her arms around him. It was awkward in their armor, but he realized that it was the most affection she’d ever shown in front of other people. “We did it,” she said.

“Congratulations.” Even though the helmet, his voice sounded proud.

“I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” She was openly beaming at him.

She turned to Garvey. “Preston, you were amazing. I know I sprung this on you out of nowhere and the Castle was targeted because of me, but you’ve always believed in me and I can’t ever thank you enough.”

They all took turns thanking each other and giving each other credit for what they’d accomplished. It seemed like nobody could believe that they’d actually done it. Stephanie--the serious, intense, chronically irreverant smartass who’d saved Danse’s life and betrayed him and earned back not only his love but his trust--had managed to do more for the Commonwealth, not to mention what was left of the world, than he’d ever thought was possible.

What’s more, Danse had played an important role in their success. No matter what Arthur thought, he had finally earned his right to exist. 

Stephanie was turning the dial on her Pip-Boy. “Oh hey, the Classical Radio Station’s gone.” She flicked to another screen. “Anyway, that job’s done. What next?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: [Old College Try by The Mountain Goats](https://youtu.be/JCrecU1YzGY) and [Heartache by Adaline](https://youtu.be/zzbKsXGvWZg).

The child from the Institute was already waiting for them at the Castle. His face lit up when he saw Stephanie. “Hi, Mom!” he called out.

“Hey, buddy!” Stephanie said without missing a beat. “Your new clothes look good on you.”

“Thanks!” 

_Mom?!_ Danse managed to make eye contact with Stephanie, who gave him a raised-eyebrows expression that he hoped meant that she had a good explanation for all of this and that she would give him the explanation as soon as possible.

The boy certainly looked like he could have been related to Stephanie. He had brown hair, brown eyes, freckles- his nose was even shaped similarly to hers. But if this was her son, who was the man who had been blown up along with the Institute?

“...So can I stay with you?” the boy was asking.

“Of course you can! Come on, let’s find a bedroom for you.” Stephanie dragged an unclaimed bed into a room that was being used for storage and she set several Minutemen to work clearing it out. “How’s this, Shaun? I can probably get someone to build you a desk and a dresser.”

_Shaun._ Well, that eliminated the possibility that she’d had two sons and only told him about one of them.

“This is so awesome! I get to live in a real castle!”

“You can decorate it however you want. Is there enough light in here? Or- hey, I have a lot of toys and stuff in my workshop that I haven’t broken down for scrap yet. Do you want to take a look?”

“Sure!”

Danse followed them to the workshop, where Stephanie started going through crates and calling out what she found. “Okay, I have a baseball glove, and there’s probably a ball around here somewhere. Do you play baseball? Oh, here’s a creepy-looking alien toy. How do you feel about board games?”

“Can I look at that microscope?” Shaun cut in.

“Sure thing.” She carefully handed the microscope to him. “Watch out, it's heavy. Hey, I think it’s mostly intact!”

Shaun looked excited. “Is it okay if I take this apart?”

“Yeah, no problem. Do you want to use my tools?”

“Thanks, Mom! Oh, I almost forgot, Father told me to give you this.” Shaun dug a holotape out of his pants pocket and handed it to her, before wandering over to the nearest table and sitting down to work. 

Once Shaun was occupied, Stephanie led Danse into another room. “Okay, yeah, I promise I can explain-”

“Please do.”

She took a deep breath. “My son--the old man you saw back in the Institute--created a synth who looked and acted like a 10-year-old version of himself to create a false trail that would lead me to Kellogg. He was the man who kidnapped Shaun from the Vault in the first place. He also set it up so that I saw the child synth when I first arrived at the Institute. I think he wanted to see how I would react if I thought he was still a kid. Anyway, I guess he reprogrammed him at some point to believe that he’s actually my son.”

“That’s a _synth?_ ” Danse looked sharply in the direction of the boy, as if he could see him through the wall.

“Yeah,” she said evenly. 

While Danse stared in disbelief, she put the holotape into the player on her Pip-Boy. Danse recognized Shaun’s voice, even though it was louder and less weak-sounding. 

“I wonder what was going through his mind when he recorded this,” Stephanie said, finally. “He must’ve made it after I killed Dr. Ayo but before we invaded the Institute. It kind of sounds like he thought of Shaun as a person, doesn’t it? Or maybe he just wanted to live vicariously through him?”

Danse ignored her questions. “You’re honestly planning to let it live with you, as your child?”

“Yes.” 

Danse sighed. He really shouldn’t have been surprised by now. “He needs to know the truth.”

“Well, obviously. I was never planning on _not_ telling him. I just thought it might be better to give him some time to adjust to his home being blown up, maybe space out the traumatic revelations. Incidentally, do you have any advice about how to have the ‘By the way, you’re a synth’ conversation?”

“I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”

Stephanie took a deep breath and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Holy shit, Danse, I’m a parent again. What do I do? ...Maybe I should stop cursing so much?”

“Honestly, that’s probably a good idea.”

“I read all these books about taking care of babies but I thought I would have more time to learn about 10-year-olds. Should I enroll him in school? What do I feed him? I hope he likes mirelurk jerky.”

“I don’t really know much about kids, myself.” Danse hadn’t had a lot of direct contact with the squires and most of them had been older than Shaun. “I thought some of your friends had children of their own. Can you ask them?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea! Mac’s a father and Piper raised her sister, and Curie used to be a Miss Nanny so she probably knows a lot about kids...”

 

That night, after Shaun had gone to sleep and once they had managed to undo the absolute minimum amount of clothing as quickly as possible, they had what Stephanie referred to as 'lucky-to-be-alive sex' against the wall, with Danse holding Stephanie up while she wrapped her legs around him and gasped quietly into his neck. Afterward, they sat on the ramparts and talked some, but mostly watched the stars. 

 

Danse was absolutely sure that Stephanie had arranged for someone to keep an eye on Shaun when she went to report back to the Railroad, but there were no other adults in sight when he heard a soft thudding noise and looked down to see that Shaun was knocking on the torso of his armor. 

“Uh, hello there.” Danse looked around the area, hoping to see anybody who could help him.

“Hey, Mister Danse?”

“Yes?”

“I love your Power Armor! I’ve never seen any in real life before.”

“Uh, thank you. Your… mother did a lot of work on this for me.” 

“Can I see the inside?”

Danse looked around again, but nobody came to his rescue. He looked down into the small, brown eyes staring up at him hopefully. 

“All right, but just for a few minutes, and you can’t touch anything without permission. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Shaun said earnestly. 

To Danse’s relief, Shaun was not only very careful but he asked a lot of intelligent questions. 

After they’d spent two hours going over all the mechanisms in his armor, Shaun asked if he could show Danse what he was working on, which turned out to be a mod for the gatling laser that was made out of parts from an old alarm clock. 

“You really are your mother’s son, aren’t you?” he asked, mostly to himself.

“Yeah,” Shaun said without looking up from what he was doing, as if it was obvious. 

 

When Stephanie returned, she was actually grinning. At least three of the Minutemen did a double-take when they saw her expression and Danse was almost positive that he overheard one of them ask “Is the General okay?”

“Danse, we did it!” She wasn’t even glancing around to see who was within earshot.

“Yes?”

“We rescued the synths! They evacuated the Institute and most of them survived! I still need to help the Railroad get the rest of them out of the Commonwealth, but we did it!”

It wasn't painful. It was barely even uncomfortable. “Congratulations,” he said.

 

There was some kind of Minutemen presence in Diamond City and Stephanie had been strongly advised to check in with them. 

The first thing that she and Danse saw when they went past the wall was a guard who was lying on the ground and bleeding from a gunshot wound. “Mayor McDonough’s a synth!” he explained as Stephanie injected him with a stimpak. Danse noticed that Stephanie looked worried, but not surprised. 

“How long have you known about this?” he asked, while they were riding the platform up to the mayor’s office.

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

“Honestly, no.”

“All right. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Piper Wright was already upstairs. Danse knew that she was technically on their side in this, but he was concerned that she would just make the situation even worse. 

Stephanie managed to get into McDonough’s office, where he was holding his near-hysterical receptionist hostage. McDonough glared at Stephanie when he saw her. Danse was tempted to shoot the mayor and be done with it, but he’d spent enough time around Stephanie to know that she preferred to talk people down whenever possible.

She managed to free the receptionist but unfortunately, the conversation escalated until Stephanie told McDonough that he would have to stand trial. McDonough yelled that the people would never let him live once they found out that he was a synth as he started firing at them. 

Instead of going for his head, Stephanie took out his gun arm with a well-placed shot and quickly gave Danse a meaningful look that made him hold his fire. They let Piper shoot at McDonough until he collapsed on the floor. 

Piper left once they’d confirmed that he was dead, muttering something about how she had to get the story out as soon as possible. Stephanie started checking his office for anything she could find that was valuable or interesting. 

“No, I don’t know what I was thinking with the trial comment,” she said as she picked the lock on the mayor’s safe. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Danse didn’t think that any kind of court system had existed in the civilian world since before the war, but he’d understood what Stephanie meant.

“Hey, can you watch the door for me?”

“All right.”

“Warn me if you see anyone coming.” Stephanie stood in the corner so that she wasn’t visible through the windows, while Danse positioned himself so that he could see if anyone was in the hallway. At the edge of his vision, he saw her rummage through her pack until she pulled out a teddy bear. She used her belt knife to tear open a seam on the toy and pulled out a small piece of paper that had been folded several times and stuffed inside of it. She replaced her knife, the bear, and her pack, and finally unfolded the paper, smoothing out the creases. “Thanks!” she said.

Stephanie led them past the still-incoherent receptionist and down the elevator toward Piper’s office. 

Piper looked irritated by the interruption until she saw who it was. “Hey,” Stephanie said, holding out the paper, “I found this in the mayor’s office. Do you think your readers might be interested in it?”

Piper examined the paper. “What is it?”

“I was hoping you could tell me?”

Piper’s eyes got progressively wider as she read. “Bl- Stephanie, this is _huge_!”

“Ooh, what is it?”

“It’s a report from McDonough to the Institute. He mentions Hancock, and the Railroad, and he even talks about me! I can’t imagine what would have happened if he’d managed to send this report back before the Institute fell.”

“That’s scary to think about.” Stephanie shuddered.

Danse debated the merits of coming up with a lie to support what Stephanie was saying.

“What was Geneva’s problem?” Stephanie asked. “That can’t have been the first time her life was threatened. Do you think she knew?”

“No,” Piper said, “She’s just freaking out because she was sleeping with McDonough and everybody knew about it.”

“That must be humiliating,” Danse mused, grateful that he could finally contribute to the conversation. “Realizing that she was involved with a-” he trailed off. 

Piper was distracted, probably mentally writing the biggest story of her career. Stephanie was rolling her eyes.

“Anyway,” Piper cut in, “I never got a chance to apologize for calling you boring when I was drunk.”

Stephanie waved it off. “I mean, you weren’t wrong.” 

“No, I shouldn’t have said that. The Commonwealth is a much better place with you in it, and that’s what really matters.”

Stephanie’s expression softened. “Thanks,” she said quietly. 

 

After leaving Piper’s office, they were stopped by one of the citizens of Diamond City. “We heard about what happened with McDonough and we all pitched in to get this for you,” the woman said, handing Stephanie a mini-nuke.

“Uh, thank you." Stephanie held it very carefully. “I guess word travels fast around here?”

The marketplace was decorated with Minutemen flags and Danse noticed that several Minutemen were stationed there. Stephanie started to walk past Myrna’s stall, but then she stopped. “Do you think she’ll sell to me now?”

“One would hope so.”

Myrna glared at Stephanie. “Are you coming to try to convince me that you’re not a synth after all?” she called out.

Stephanie approached her with a friendly expression. “Did you happen to hear about what happened with the Institute? Or the mayor?”

As if she hadn’t heard her, Myrna said “Are you a synth or not?”

“No, I’m definitely a synth. Not human at all,” Stephanie said in a deadpan voice. 

Danse tried not to flinch. Myrna yelled something incoherent and stormed off into her house.

“Was that necessary?” he asked Stephanie.

“ _Yes_ ,” she said emphatically. “Okay, fine, will you stop looking at me like that if I buy you a fusion core? Arturo will still sell to me.”

“I was under the impression that you owe me three fusion cores.” Not that he’d expected her to actually pay him back, considering that they’d been sharing almost everything since they first met each other.

“Four fusion cores and some ramen?”

Danse started to smile, in spite of himself. “That sounds reasonable.”

 

“Please tell me I did the right thing with the mayor,” Stephanie said after they’d sat down to eat. 

“Of course you did. What else could you have done?”

“It’s just that he tried to play the ‘I’m a poor oppressed synth’ card and then I shot him. But he’d been actively trying to drive the Railroad out of Diamond City, so it’s not the same. Right?”

“You didn’t have any other option. He was just going to keep hurting people and causing trouble until somebody killed him.”

“Right, yeah. Thanks.” She still didn’t look convinced.

Another person interrupted them to thank Stephanie for everything she’d done and hand her a syringe of Psycho, courtesy of the citizens of Diamond City.

“Uh, thank you. That’s very kind.” When the person left, she leaned closer to Danse. “What does Diamond City think of me, exactly?” 

“They evidently think very highly of you.”

“Right.” She leaned forward to eat a mouthful of noodles. “You know, I’d been planning to leave once all of this was over. Just try to get as far away from the Commonwealth as I could, come up with a different life story, maybe go by a different name. I think I’ve been living in the future long enough that I can pass.”

“Were you planning to tell me any of this?”

“I was planning to invite you to come with me, actually. Don’t think I will now, though. Kids need stability and community and Shaun has both of those at the Castle. Besides, people are mostly calling me General now instead of Vault Dweller and I think I can live with that.”

 

Stephanie continued to go on occasional missions to assist synths who were trying to escape the Commonwealth. When she informed Danse that she would be leaving early the next morning to run another one of these, he asked “Can I go with you?”

“You want to help me?”

“If it’s allowed, yes.” 

She looked at him curiously, as if she was about to ask why, but then she just said “All right.”

He wasn’t sure what he would have said if she had asked him. Something about how he wanted to see what she was doing because it was important to her, or he wanted to know more about his own past, but neither of those seemed sufficient.

The mission itself was fairly straightforward. They cleared a building of the Super Mutants who had decided to set themselves up inside it, and eventually found the synth who had locked himself in one of the rooms. He didn’t look particularly distinctive: slim, middle-aged, dark skin, short hair. He was visibly terrified but he stood very still. Stephanie gave him a care package and confirmed that he would be able to do the rest on his own, and they parted ways. 

All in all, it wasn’t very different from any of the missions they’d undertaken to help settlers.

 

Danse started training the Minutemen army to fight more effectively. They were strong enough to withstand the occasional raider attack, but there were rumors that the Gunners were starting to take notice that they’d once again become a force to be reckoned with, and they needed to be ready.

Stephanie worked on weapons with Shaun and rebuilt her turrets. The new ones were stronger and capable of dealing even more damage than her previous defense system. She started organizing Minutemen to teach the settlements how to build houses for themselves.

Shaun was fascinated by almost everything on the surface and he seemed eager to learn as much as possible. Seemingly out of nowhere, he developed the ability to pick almost any lock that he could find. Stephanie was convinced that Deacon had taught him but neither Deacon nor Shaun would admit to anything.

 

The Prydwen flew overhead as it left for the Citadel. Stephanie noticed and quietly stopped what she was doing so that she could salute it.

Danse saluted as well. “Ad victoriam,” he said.

“Ad victoriam,” she repeated.

“What does that mean?” asked Shaun.

Stephanie responded before Danse could. “It’s Latin. It means ‘to victory’.” 

“Cool!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can't believe I actually finished this! If you've managed to read this far, I hope it's because you've enjoyed it. In any case, thank you for letting me share my story with you <3


End file.
